The Virgin Nativity Cathedral
Medallions

The Southern Altar Apse Wall, the First from the Window

Dionisy's frescoes. The Southern Altar Apse Wall, the First from the Window

In the medallion (60 cm in diameter) there is a flower-leaf ornament against a grey-black background. The geometrical pattern of the ornament is built of six circumferences of various diameters with the same focus and circular arcs of the central circle diameter with the foci on its circumference dividing it into six equal parts. Between the arcs six fan-shaped “flowers” with wavy edges, orientated in an anticlockwise direction, are inscribed from the centre of the central circle towards its circumference in a clockwise direction. The opposite “flowers” are painted the same colour: the side one is green (glauconite); the bottom left and top right are yellow (ochre) with dark shading of the bases (by the circumference). There are several wide borders of the central circles with white (white chalk ground) in between: an internal (2.3 cm) background border, followed by a green (1.5 cm), thin brown and external (3.7 cm) with pinkish-grey traces. All the colour elements of the ornament including the wide border (3 cm) between the two thin ones have a white outline (white chalk ground). In the centre of the medallion and on the circumference of the internal circle there are traces of the leg of a compass. Light green cloth folds are painted over the ornament. Condition: multiple strengthened minor losses of the white chalk ground in the bottom and left parts of the medallion, mechanical damage. Complete loss of pigments in the top left bottom right “flowers” and in the external circle; considerable loss of the background and cloth folds. Conservation: 2004, restorer O.M.Revin.