Icon
by Rin Yamashita

For two years from December 1881 to April 1881, he studied at a convent in Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) by himself at the recommendation of Nikolai. While studying icons, she also attended the Hermitage Museum and studied Italian Renaissance religious paintings. After returning to Japan, she lived in the dormitory of a women's seminary in Surugadai, Kanda, Tokyo, and painted many icons for the Japanese Orthodox Church, but returned to her hometown of Kasama in 1918 and died on January 26, 1939, after 82 years of life. Although her works were in the unique field of icons (holy image paintings), they also show the techniques of Italian painters of the early Renaissance, and her soft, feminine and emotional expressions are highly regarded among artists.
　The icon in the Magata Hall was produced between 1891 and 1892, when she was 35 years old, eight years after she returned from her studies in Russia. Another work from the same period is "The Resurrection of the Lord" presented to Russian Crown Prince Nikolai during his visit to Japan in 1894, bound in maki-e lacquer. (Now in the collection of the Hermitage Museum)
　The Magata Church is recognized for its cultural value as a quasi-Western-style building of the Meiji era, and was designated an Important Cultural Property by Akita Prefecture on March 22, 1966, as "the oldest existing wooden Byzantine-style church building in Japan. On the other hand, the 19 icons inside the church have great value in art history as examples of Western-style painting at the dawn of modern Japan, and were designated as cultural assets by Odate City on September 3, 1991, attracting many visitors.