Forest house yields another treasure

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.

Treasure revealed

(...continuing from blog below)

I spent the whole morning washing the muddy 'treasure', out in the Spring sunshine. It was an odd feeling, handling the pieces of domesticity that were so assiduously hidden; pieces that ages ago, in this very place, someone actually used daily. A mouth that's now no longer in this world cupped its lips over these dainty porcelain rims, a hand used to wash them the way I do now... funny; I never felt this way before when buying, say, a mug in a junk shop. Or even when moving house! It's something about the way this ancestor must have valued those few pathetic, mis-matched possessions, probably all the family ever had - why else would (s)he have buried them 3ft deep? Did they have to leave in a hurry? Did they hope to come back? Did they think they'd never have the means to buy another cup or saucer?

And I reflect with a slight shiver of guilt how I think nothing of picking up a mug at Tesco's for a few pence. It's only a few generations back (there was a lonely 1 Austro-Hungarian crown coin in the teapot, from 1883) but how our lives have changed. Now I revel in the romance of having no running water or a loo here, but for this family it was no romance, just daily life. Come Summer, come hard Winter.
Anyway - I know this sounds sentimental, but my feelings were all too real out there by the water pump: I promised the ones that never returned to claim their belongings, to look after them, and to make the house come to life not just for those that come after us, but also in these ancestors' honour.

Treasure in the pantry

Well, Pushkin is no longer the only treasure-finder among us! Having no finance to renovate the Lake house properly, we are doing bits and pieces, clearing the house and the attic, burning rotten hay and wood from the cowsheds, and so on. Well, when I say 'we' the labour is mainly performed by a local young man who by now has become as one of the family. So today when I came to join him there, he was as delighted as a child: I found a treasure!, he announced.
No, don't get too excited, no barrels of gold here - but still, what a feeling to have found something hidden, something that some hundred years ago was worth so much to the person who lived there, as to dig a hole deep enough to cover it, so it remained undiscovered until now.
It's a small room at the back of the house, perhaps it used to be a pantry. The floor there was earthen, but quite damp and bulging in places, and causing the damp to go up the stone walls. So we thought we should dig it up so as to put some draining shingle there. When our friend started to pick-axe it, he realised he was bringing up bits of old porcelain - so he stopped and looked properly. What he unearthed was the rotten remnants of a wooden box, in which there were large metal cooking-pots, each of which held porcelain and glass pieces, some earthenware and some cutlery.
Alas the biggest pieces that must have lain on the top died under the pick-axe. The rest - well, I am no expert but it seems to me that nothing will be of much monetary value, there is no 'set' of crockery, just odd cups and plates, and jugs and so on. But who cares about the monetary value: like Pushkin, I aim to wash it all and later when the house is renovated, give the treasure a prime space on the kitchen shelf, so that the value that the old occupant of the house obviously afforded his few belongings, will be dignified.

Treasure in the attic

Continuing from:
Second Home Adventure
More on Forest House

Had a great time clearing out the attic at the Forest house - the roofers and the builders will start arriving soon.
First the partition walls had to come down: it was a bit alarming to realise the partitions were made of unfired bricks so one good knock and the partition came down. The bricks are so soft that if you squeeze one, it crumbles to dust in your hand. Apparently these sort of bricks were being used all through the area for centuries, and I suppose they served well - if one didn't go knocking at them too hard :-) My builder tells me that the old local brickworks were squeezed out by the big boys and cement/concrete makers after 1930s, and ever since then houses can't breathe properly. Obviously my builder is one of those Czech locals who believe in using old and local materials whenever possible. But he needn't worry, I won't be putting concrete in the attic - the partitions had to go as I am planning to open the space up as much as possible. Luckily the roof beams seem 90% sound so I can keep the old structure, just clean it up a little.
Which brings me to tell you about the treasures I found when clearing up. It seems that the previous owners, who were there since the 1970s but only used the house as their occasional weekend retreat, didn't ever bother to look behind the partition walls into the dark spaces of the actual attic nooks. I found four ancient tin baths, old leather suitcases, loads of dusty bee-keeping equipment and bee-keepers' magazines from 1920s and 30s, old clothes and several wooden trunks, most of them too damaged to be reparable. But one of the chests was in good condition, and when I dusted it off and looked inside, I found a real treasure: hundreds of fine pencil drawings and watercolours, again dated between 1920s and 1930s.

Whoever lived in the house then was not only a good artist, but someone who obviously loved the countryside here and kept returning to the same trees and cottages to draw and paint them in all seasons and weathers. I wonder how many of these cottages still stand - because many were bulldozed by the communist authorities during the 'Fifties as this area was close to the border with Austria, and many villages fell simply because the authorities feared that people who might be thinking of escaping to the West might find it too easy to hide here. Or so I was told. In any case, I look forward to walking the local places and looking for any building that might be familiar from my gentle ghostly predecessor.

And when the house is restored and finished, I look forward to having his artworks framed, so they can adorn my walls and live again.