At Christies London this icon is for sale 9th june 2008. The price is somewhere between EUR 240.000 and EUR 340.000. Was it robbed or traded of the peninsula? We will never know.
hv
CHRIST PANTOKRATOR
GREEK (MOUNT ATHOS), 16TH CENTURY
Seated on a backless throne carved with figures of cherubs and supplemented with a red cushion and similar suppedaneum, blessing with his right hand and displaying the inscribed Gospel Book (text Christies)
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Athos – Agion Oros
The question is also: who is the owner, and yes, how became he the owner…
Do they know this auction in Greece, on Agion Oros?
I believe the great iconographer Theophanis is the painter in regards to this specific icon, and yes I beleive it was stolen from Athos! This is one of many relics that disapeared in the past 5 decades. If you look up the history of Mt.Athos, you will see that relics have never been sold or traded by the Abbots of these monasteries. Relics are a part of Athos as are everything else on that peninsula. Look up German news in the past 10 years regarding stolen
Byzantine artifacts that have been recovered by German authorities that were involved with Turkish officials on cracking down on this one jewish New York art gallery,that sponsored the illegal trafficking of Byzantine art. It’s ironic how this woman gallery owner had paid some of these Turks in Cyprus a couple of million dollars to steel and in return she and the others were arrested, after a 10 year sting operation. The funny thing about it is that she demanded her money to be returned to her, after all she said “it is my money and it belongs to me since I didn’t receive the work that I paid for”.