You might find this very interesting, in the sense that I've never seen a picture in the churches here or any museum etc, of this kind of 'icon'. I'd love to know where the original is (does anyone know?) because this must be quite a rare print which was found in the Forest house barn when I was clearing out its attic store, which is full of old beekeeping equipment.As you may know from my previous posts, Forest house has an abundance of bees, very friendly ones. The previous owner didn't bother about beekeeping (or anything else for that matter) but the owner(s) before him, who left or died in 1973, must have been very keen beekeeper(s) judging by the amount of now frail and rotting hives and stuff in the barn attic, as well as the now rickety empty hive-shed in the far corner of the garden. As you may also already know I have been very keen to make sure the bees are happy in my new garden and made them their big water container to drink from, and generally I came to appreciate them, especially with the news that bees are declining in the world.
That's why I was extremely pleased to have found this picture. It has now been cleaned, restored and framed for me by one of my closest local friends - she is a bookbinder and restorer by profession.
She said that the patron of bee-keepers is St Ambrose, but after researching the web, I don't believe this is Ambrose as he seems more like Christ to me - any opinions on this? I would welcome feedback as I really have never seen this combination of symbols or attributes before.
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