Summary
This article examines a set of six icons preserved at the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, Egypt. Four of the panels are calendar icons. The fifth depicts the Last Judgement, while the last presents a unique combination of five miraculous images of the Virgin and a narrative cycle with scenes from the life of Christ. Several dating proposals have been made for the panels, ranging from the late 11th century to the early 12th century.
A short inscription in Georgian beneath the throne of the Redeemer in the Last Judgement scene mentions the priest Ioannes Tohabi as the commissioner of the work. The name Ioannes also appears in four long epigrams composed in a refined Greek and distributed on the back of the icons. These inscriptions clearly indicate that Ioannes was also the painter of the work - the material executor and responsible for its iconographic peculiarities.
The article focuses on the analysis of the prayers in verse, as they constitute an extraordinary case of a 'signature' by a painter, such that they occupy a relevant place in the debate on the role of the artist in the Byzantine world.
