The iconostasis of the Church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Stara Skvariava, Lviv region, is one of the finest examples of the Peremyshl school of iconography. According to M. Dragan, who first wrote about this monument, “The iconostasis in Stara Skvariava is a conglomerate of icons from different periods and authors, collected from various churches. The oldest part, from the XVI century, includes the row of apostles with festal icons and the ‘Pantocrator’ (two pairs of apostles and the XVI-century Crucifix are preserved in the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art).”

Vira Sventsitska, who also visited Stara Skvariava, noted that the iconostasis consists of icons from the XVI and XVII centuries. Both art historians accurately identified the time of the iconostasis’s creation. These references sparked the interest of restorer Halyna Skop, who was then the head of the Restoration Department of the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion. A trip to the village was undertaken in 1993 when some church artifacts, placed in the museum during the Soviet era after the church’s closure, were being returned. A parishioner visiting the museum agreed to show her the iconostasis. In 1995, thanks to Halyna Skop’s initiative, the iconostasis was transferred to the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion for restoration, where museum restorers and students from the Department of Restoration of the Lviv National Academy of Arts worked under her supervision.

Scientific research accompanied the restoration process. Architects, including Vasyl Slobodian, contributed to these studies. In 2008, during his examination of the church, Slobodian discovered the construction date of the temple—1508—written in XVI-century uncial script in black paint on a beam of the northern nave wall. This finding suggested the need for further investigation into whether the XVI-century icons originated from this church. According to Slobodian, the church originally stood in Hlynsk on an old cemetery site. After the construction of lower and upper churches in Hlynsk, this church remained unused until the early XVIII century, when it was moved in 1715. The church underwent restoration under the guidance of I. Bukhanskyi, based on designs by S. Pinkovsky and A. Haiduchyk. The restoration of the XVI-XVIII century iconostasis began in May 1995, following a decision by the scientific and restoration council on December 27, 1995.

The restoration was led by Halyna Druziuk. Restorers included:

• Petro Skop: “Apostles Paul and Matthew” (117.0 x 53.5 x 2.3 cm), “Archangel Michael,” “Theotokos Hodigitria,” “The Unburnt Bush,” “John and Centurion Longinus.”
• Ihor Polishchuk: “Apostles John and Peter” (115.8 x 53.8 x 2.3 cm).
• Lida Vynohradskaya-Hryhel: “Apostles Luke and Simon” (120.0 x 56.0 x 2.3 cm).
• Halyna Druziuk: “Archangel Michael and John the Baptist,” “Theotokos and Archangel Gabriel,” “Christ in Majesty,” “Apostles Andrew and Mark.”
• Mykola Panfilov: “St. Nicholas of Myra.”
• Ihor Zamoysky: “Christ Pantocrator,” “The Giving of the Keys to Apostle Peter.”
• Sofia Horditsi: “The Crucifixion.”
• Marta Podolchak: “The Three Marys.”

 

All XVI-century icons were renewed by villagers in the mid-XX century. Since the icons were purchased from a larger church in another village, they did not fit the eastern wall of the Skvariava church under its vaults or in width. As a result, some icon boards were trimmed, damaging the apostles’ heads. The entire iconostasis was coated with low-quality varnish, which significantly darkened over time. Where tempera layers and gesso had flaked off, losses were painted over with oil paint. The paint layer and gesso showed delamination from the icon boards.

The first restoration opeation was to strengthen the paint layer and levkas. The problem was that two layers of varnish: the author’s and a rather thick one at the time of restoration – did not allow the water-based glue to penetrate the paint layer and levkas. For reinforcement, sturgeon glue of 3% concentration with antiseptic katamine AB – 0.05% was used. A small amount of acetone was dripped onto the surface of the swelling, which caused the varnish to swell during the renewal period. The surface was glued with micalent paper – for insurance. After that, ethyl alcohol was slowly injected into the voids with a syringe and glue at intervals of 3-5 minutes. The surface was not laid immediately, but after 10-15 minutes. Such an interval was needed so that the plaster would slowly be saturated with glue. The swelling was first laid with a damp cotton swab, removing the remnants of glue that came out of the voids, after which the surface was ironed with a spatula and a small cold iron. The swelling was finally completed with a warm iron – 20-30 ° C.

After testing several organic solvents for removing the varnish during the renewal period, the solvent from the ketone group – acetone turned out to be the best. When applied to the surface of the varnish, the varnish absorbed the solvent and separated from the original varnish in the form of a film. Organic solvents such as dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylacetamide turned the top varnish into a “slurry”. They partially dissolved it and this could be a threat to the original painting, especially its light colors. The dissolved varnish could enter the craquelure and distort the original painting. One of the advantages of acetone was that it quickly weathered and did not dissolve the top varnish during the renewal period. The original varnish was thinned with a semi-moist swab of DMF and DMS. The disclosure was performed using an MBS-10 microscope and dental instruments – a dental probe and an eye scalpel, soft brushes (number 1, 2, 3).

After revealing the varnishes, a layer of 2% sturgeon glue was applied to the surface of the icon, with a concentration of 0.05% with the antiseptic katamine AB, which formed an intermediate, protective layer between the author’s painting and the varnish. Such an intermediate layer was discovered during microchemical analyses of the icons of this iconostasis, which were performed by Valentina Terpylo, leading engineer of the National Technical Laboratory “Conres” (Kyiv) and Maria Tseytlina (BRMI, Minsk). After restoration, the icons were covered with damar varnish from the company “Lefranc and Bourget (1991)”.

A major restoration work was the reconstruction of the royal gates and their doorposts (196.0 x 84.5 cm), made of many wooden parts glued together that had come apart. It was necessary to put all the details in place and glue and make the lost fragments.

A series of restoration operations were also performed on the semicircular top of the box of the royal gates, with the image of Jesus Christ blessing and seraphim. The icon was under a layer of varnish from the time of the restoration and was partially repainted. The composition was painted on a homespun canvas, glued onto small, different width (4-5 cm) boards, laid out in the form of a half-arch, some of the boards were lost, and the rest were deformed. As a result of the restoration, the canvas with the painting was glued onto a new base, the varnish from the time of the restoration and the sketching was removed – restored by Maria Rymar. The lost carving on the portal of the box and the royal gates was supplemented in accordance with the author’s carving and restored by Yuriy Voronyak. The jambs of the royal gates with the fathers of the church were restored by Maria Rymar, Raluka Bivol and Olga Garbuz-Shiryaeva.

The deacon’s door with the image of the archistratigus Michael (artist Ivan Rutkovich, 1677, board, tempera, silver plating, 187.5 x 66.0 cm) also needed restoration. They consist of two glued boards, fastened with two parallel mortise dowels, which had dried up and did not hold the base. The left and right parts also diverged because they were taken from different parts of the wood. The left board remained flat, and the right one was deformed, it bent by 5 cm, and a diagonal skew was formed.

A seat row with a plinth and carved polychrome frame, which was repainted twice with oil and “silver” – aluminum paint.

As a result of a violation of the moisture-heat regime, many of the iconostasis icon boards were deformed. Deformations are different. The board is mostly convex towards the painting. The greatest deformation is observed in the lower part of the icon. The curvature can be insignificant – 4-5 mm, or it can be larger – 1.5-3.0 cm. Almost all of these deformations can be corrected.

For this we use the recipe of the Munich restorer

All icons of the 16th century. in the middle of the 20th century were restored by peasants. Since the icons were bought in another village, from a larger church, they did not fit under the sails and in width on the eastern wall of the Skvariava church, so several icon boards were sawn off. Because of this, the heads of the apostles were partially damaged. The entire iconostasis was covered with poor-quality varnish, which darkened significantly. Where there were screes of the tempera paint layer and levkas, the losses were painted over with oil paint. There was a noticeable detachment of the paint layer and levkas from the base of the icon.

The first restoration operation was to strengthen the paint layer and levkas. The problem was that two layers of varnish: the author’s and a rather thick one at the time of restoration – did not allow the water-based glue to penetrate the paint layer and levkas. For reinforcement, sturgeon glue of 3% concentration with antiseptic katamine AB – 0.05% was used. A small amount of acetone was dripped onto the surface of the swelling, which caused the varnish to swell during the renewal period. The surface was glued with micalent paper – for insurance. After that, ethyl alcohol was slowly injected into the voids with a syringe and glue at intervals of 3-5 minutes. The surface was not laid immediately, but after 10-15 minutes. Such an interval was needed so that the plaster would slowly be saturated with glue. The swelling was first laid with a damp cotton swab, removing the remnants of glue that came out of the voids, after which the surface was ironed with a spatula and a small cold iron. The swelling was finally completed with a warm iron – 20-30 ° C.

After testing several organic solvents for removing the varnish during the renewal period, the solvent from the ketone group – acetone turned out to be the best. When applied to the surface of the varnish, the varnish absorbed the solvent and separated from the original varnish in the form of a film. Organic solvents such as dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylacetamide turned the top varnish into a “slurry”. They partially dissolved it and this could be a threat to the original painting, especially its light colors. The dissolved varnish could enter the craquelure and distort the original painting. One of the advantages of acetone was that it quickly weathered and did not dissolve the top varnish during the renewal period. The original varnish was thinned with a semi-moist swab of DMF and DMS. The disclosure was performed using an MBS-10 microscope and dental instruments – a dental probe and an eye scalpel, soft brushes (number 1, 2, 3).

After revealing the varnishes, a layer of 2% sturgeon glue was applied to the surface of the icon, with a concentration of 0.05% with the antiseptic katamine AB, which formed an intermediate, protective layer between the author’s painting and the varnish. Such an intermediate layer was discovered during microchemical analyses of the icons of this iconostasis, which were performed by Valentina Terpylo, leading engineer of the National Technical Laboratory “Conres” (Kyiv) and Maria Tseytlina (BRMI, Minsk). After restoration, the icons were covered with damar varnish from the company “Lefranc and Bourget (1991)”.

A major restoration work was the reconstruction of the royal gates and their doorposts (196.0 x 84.5 cm), made of many wooden parts glued together that had come apart. It was necessary to put all the details in place and glue and make the lost fragments.

A series of restoration operations were also performed on the semicircular top of the box of the royal gates, with the image of Jesus Christ blessing and seraphim. The icon was under a layer of varnish from the time of the restoration and was partially repainted. The composition was painted on a homespun canvas, glued onto small, different width (4-5 cm) boards, laid out in the form of a half-arch, some of the boards were lost, and the rest were deformed. As a result of the restoration, the canvas with the painting was glued onto a new base, the varnish from the time of the restoration and the sketching was removed – restored by Maria Rymar. The lost carving on the portal of the box and the royal gates was supplemented in accordance with the author’s carving and restored by Yuriy Voronyak. The jambs of the royal gates with the fathers of the church were restored by Maria Rymar, Raluka Bivol and Olga Garbuz-Shiryaeva.

The deacon’s door with the image of the archistratigus Michael (artist Ivan Rutkovich, 1677, board, tempera, silver plating, 187.5 x 66.0 cm) also needed restoration. They consist of two glued boards, fastened with two parallel mortise dowels, which had dried up and did not hold the base. The left and right parts also diverged because they were taken from different parts of the wood. The left board remained flat, and the right one was deformed, it bent by 5 cm, and a diagonal skew was formed.

A seat row with a plinth and carved polychrome frame, which was repainted twice with oil and “silver” – aluminum paint.

As a result of a violation of the moisture-heat regime, many of the iconostasis icon boards were deformed. Deformations are different. The board is mostly convex towards the painting. The greatest deformation is observed in the lower part of the icon. The curvature can be insignificant – 4-5 mm, or it can be larger – 1.5-3.0 cm. Almost all of these deformations can be corrected.

For this we use the recipe of the Munich restorer Karl Walterson, changing the method of correcting deformation. It consists in long-term softening of the board and correcting it with the help of a weight, and later clamps, and fixing the aligned wood with a suitable solvent – bleached shellac diluted in ethyl alcohol. After that, the boards are fastened with new mortise screws in place of the old ones.

The concentration of shellac in alcohol at the beginning of the saturation of the wood with it was 3-5%, and then increased to 10-15%, and the board was saturated as much as it needed to form a film on its surface. After a certain time, the varnish film can be partially thinned. The icon “John the Baptist and Archangel Michael” with the scenes “The Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell” and “The Ascension” had a deformation of one of the boards along the diagonal of 2.5-3.0 cm, because the glue of these two boards on which the icon is painted came apart. This was due not only to a change in the moisture-thermal regime, but also to the fact that when mounting the icons of the 16th century on the eastern wall in the new church, the peasants planed the beams flush with the icon board, so they stopped holding the board from deformation. Such deformation was also caused by the fact that people threw away the slats in which the icons of the 16th century were mounted, and simply nailed them to the eastern wall.

The boards of the icon “Ivan the Baptist and Archangel Michael” were glued twice on the front side with 3% sturgeon glue with antiseptic katamine AB – 0.05%. And on top of the paper glue, another layer of gauze was glued. After that, the old splinters were knocked out, the icon boards were separated, and each of them was leveled separately. New splinters and oak structures for the namisnogo and socle rows, according to the design of Petro Skop, were made by Andriy Datsky and Igor Chernodarov.

The icons “Crucifixion”, the predecessors of “Three Marys”, “Ivan and Centurion Longinus” were heavily repainted in the 20th century, so the recording was removed to the author’s layer of painting with the help of neutral solvents. The completion of all the tinting of the iconostasis was performed by Petro Skop. The restoration was completed in 2010.

Source – Skop-Druzyuk H., Skop P. Iconostasis of the 16th-18th centuries from the village of Stara Skvariava: album. Lviv: Logos, 2009

Despite the fact that the iconostasis has exceptional artistic value, it was never included in the list of monuments. On the initiative of the museum administration, without the involvement of restorers, in 2015 it was transported to the church of Archangel Michael. Due to the inability to properly maintain the temperature and humidity regime, swelling began to appear on the icons of the 16th century.

Therefore, as of 2024, the iconostasis of the 16th century. has never been reunited and is located in different places. Thus, the icons from the collection of the LMIR are in the village of Stara Skvariava. Instead, the collection of the National Museum in Lviv named after A. Sheptytskyi contains icons from the middle of the 16th century. “Apostle Philip and Apostle James” with the gospel scenes “The Division in Half”, “The Nativity of the Virgin”, “Apostle Bartholomew and Apostle Thomas” with the gospel scenes “The Assumption of the Virgin” and “The Healing of the Blind”, as well as “The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ”.

Later additions

During the restoration of the icon “The Cathedral of Archangel Michael” under the leadership of Galina Skop-Druzyuk and the student Igor Polishchuk, in 1995-2000, two side inserts from the 19th century were dismantled, which during this period were glued to the icon to adapt to new interior needs – placement in a carved altar of the second half of the 18th century. The fact that the inserts are later was evidenced by the features of the wood and the paint layer (only the 19th century layer was discovered), the fact that there was no paint layer around the edges of the original icon. Instead, there were traces of individual authorial strokes. The removal of the inserts in order to return it to its original appearance was approved by a number of Ukrainian art historians and restorers, including Borys Voznytskyi, Vasyl and Myroslav Otkovych, as well as academician Andriy Chebykin.

However, after the restoration was completed and the iconostasis was transferred to Stara Skvariava in 2018, the restorer of the LMIR M. Bonkovska decided to re-place the icon in a later 18th-century altar. and for this purpose, new side parts were glued to the original 17th-century icon. As a result of the “reconstruction” of the 19th-century inserts, an imitation of the painting by Ivan Rutkovych was made, which did not really exist before. The imitation of naive painting of the 19th century led to the fact that, for example, the hand of the angel to the right of Michael was extended and began to belong to the neighboring angel. As a result of the installation of the icon in the newer altar, part of the original icon was hidden – so Michael’s feet ended up under the frame. Such actions contradict the norms of restoration, which prohibit such changes in original works of art and were made contrary to the decisions of the scientific and restoration councils, and were agreed upon by the local council of the LMIR, to which neither the participants of the previous councils, nor the head G. Druzyuk and the performer I. Polishchuk were invited.

M. Skop