The size of the full-length icon of Apostle Andrew indicates that it was originally kept in a church. Apparently, it was part of the Deesis row of the iconostasis. Unfortunately, the documents that formalized the receipt of this icon by the museum do not mention in which church it was located.
The Church calls Andrew the Apostle the
First-Called, as he and his brother were the first among Christ’s disciples to
be called by Him:
And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
But even earlier, Andrew, being a disciple of John the Baptist, himself sought Christ, as the Gospel reports:
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
It was decided by lot that Andrew was to preach Christianity in the lands around the Black Sea, including Scythia located to the north. Later, because of this fact, the legend of the apostle’s journey to Russia was included in the “Russian Primary Chronicle”.
Painted according to the rules of proportions suggested by Dionisius (the head to the total height is one to nine), the narrow, elongated figure of Andrew the First-Called stands on dark high (almost a third of the height of the central part of the icon) ground (a pozema — a conventional depiction of earth in icons), half-turned to the viewer. With both hands he holds the Gospel — a symbol of his apostolic ministry.
The apostle is dressed in a red chiton and a blue himation; his robes sparkle with gold. The background is painted with a light ocher close in tone to gold. The face is painted rather dark and almost monochrome: the painter used dark shades of ocher to draw even darker outlines of the nose, eyes, and lips. Only the whites of the eyes and the little dashes around them are made with light touches of white; these dashes are used to enliven the image. Two black dots indicate the pupils. A pair of thin red stripes denote the lips. The eyes are deliberately enlarged relative to the understated lips — this is a well-known iconographic technique that is used to symbolize the ascetic lifestyle of the saint. The elongated body also highlights Andrew’s asceticism. The face is elegantly, masterfully framed by stands of gray hair made with whitewash.
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