Jesus Hominum Salvator

Andreas Ritzos was the most prolific Cretan icon painter of the fifteenth century, working in Candia (modern Heraklion) under Venetian rule and producing icons for both the Greek Orthodox community and Western Catholic buyers — the export trade in Cretan icons to Venice and the western Mediterranean was substantial in this period. His Jesus Hominum Salvator (Salvator Mundi) type — Christ as Saviour of Mankind — was among the most commercially successful icon types because it served both Orthodox and Catholic devotional functions, the frontal blessing figure adaptable to either tradition.

Ritzos works strictly within the Byzantine icon painting tradition — egg tempera on gessoed panel, hierarchically scaled frontal figure, gold ground, incised halo — while introducing minor concessions to western taste in the more rounded modelling of the face and the slight softening of the gold-line drapery convention.