The Resurrection – The Descent into Hell is a festive icon. It is dedicated to the main event of the Christian New Testament history — the Resurrection of Christ. Christ is depicted here twice. In the lower right corner, surrounded by an oval halo, mandorla, He emerges from the tomb, in front of which lie a thrown gravestone and sleeping warriors. In the centre, Christ, in the same single-tone clothes, tramples the hell gates crossed over the abyss.

This icon was painted in the late 19th — early 20th century, possibly in Moscow. There were options of how to depict the narrative of the Resurrection of Christ, the icon painter here was guided by the one known from the middle of the 16th century. According to it, the scene The Rise from the Tomb is placed in the lower right corner, and not at the top centre, as is customary in later icons. At the same time, the image of Christ himself in the halo of the almond-shaped mandorla with the soldiers sleeping around came from Russian art of the second half of the 17th century. Another peculiarity of this icon: the master did not inscribe the names of the saints depicted here.

In the canonical Gospels, the Resurrection of Christ is communicated implicitly: by the descriptions of an earthquake, the empty tomb of Christ, the appearance of angels to the Myrrhbearers. Stories about how Christ fettered Satan and brought the Old Testament righteous, led by Adam and Eve, out of hell formed from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus of the 2nd century, as well as individual psalms, prophecies, Epistles of the Apostles, the words of the Church Fathers and liturgical texts.