International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Prodromos Papanikolaou
King’s College London, London, United Kingdom; 
[e-mail]
A Panel Icon of St. Panteleemon from Tilos. Uncovering a Late Byzantine Artwork
During the course of conservation works taking place in the monastery of Saint Panteleemon 
at Tilos a medium sized, approximately 110 cm x 97 cm, icon, the most venerated one, representing 
Saint Panteleemon was sent to the laboratories of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese. The 
icon, placed in a proskynetarion in the nave of the katholikon, was covered with a silver revetment. 
According to the donor inscription the revetment was a communal donation of the Tilians during 
the abbacy of the abbot Makarios in the year 1839 and the name of the manufacturer. The revetment 
represents the young saint in a rectangular frame, frontal and standing, while he is holding the 
medical box and the forceps. He is dressed in a long reaching to his feet tunic and over it he wears 
two different kinds of overclothe, a short one reaching up to his knees and the characteristic medical 
one, which is worn in the front. On each side there is a pitcher and a baroquish frame with his name O 

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ΑΓΙΟC ΠΑΝΤΕΛΕΥΜΟΝΑΣ and underneath him in a similar frame the donor inscription already 
mentioned. When the revetment was removed a totally different icon of the saint was uncovered. 
The face of the original icon, which was probably too damaged sometime by the 17
th
or the 18
th
century and, before its adornment with the silver revetment, it was renovated. This renovation must 
have been twofold; firstly, the face was scraped off and secondly, it was overpainted. The difference 
though was that the overpainting was not limited to the contour of the face but a new smaller head 
took its place, which meant to fit in with the dimensions of the silver cover. 
Nevertheless, the original painted representation of the saint is somewhat different than the 
metallic one. The common features between the two portraits are the frontal posture and the items, 
i.e. the exact same two things, the forceps and the medical box. However, the saint is shown in a 
half-portrait, and he is dressed in a light blue tunic with a crew neck and over it he wears a himation 
in a salmon red hue. The background is the typical abstract golden. In upper case letters on each side 
of his head it reads Ο [ΑΓΙΟC] ΠΑ[Ν]/ ΤΕΛΕΗΜΩΝ. Judging from its features it should marked 
that this icon introduces an interesting variation in the iconography of the saint, which is rarely met 
during the late Palaiologan period. The little surviving evidence of the representations of the saint in 
the Dodecanese makes it hard to trace its actual prototype, but it is rather probable that this should 
be looked into the capital of the Hospitaller state. From an artistic point of view, the icon clearly 
belongs to late byzantine period, most probably in the second half of the 15
th
century. Questions 
concerning its original purpose, its function and its possible place of production will be attempted 
to be answered taking into account the historic context of this newly discovered artwork.

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