A Russian or East European Painted Icon of Saint John the Baptist

18th/19th Century

Height 20 1/2 x width 17 1/4 inches.

Property from the José M. Neistein Collection

This lot is located in Chicago.

José Menache Neistein, Ph. D (1934-2020) was born in São Paulo, Brazil in a Jewish immigrant family. He was an intellectual and appreciator of different artistic and cultural fields, performing throughout his life activities as a critic, teacher, curator, cultural attaché, lecturer and art collector.

Residing in the United States from 1970 to 2020, Neistein was invited by the Itamaraty to occupy the position of Cultural Attaché at the Brazilian Embassy as Executive-Director of the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute (BACI) in Washington D.C. During the same period, Prof. Neistein was also a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Contributing Editor for the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress.

José Neistein's art collection, universal and eclectic, had been developed over 50 years of acquisition and study. Its growth reflected, all over the years, the diversification of the collector’s interests, the maturing of his taste and the deepening of its quality. The art of some of the planet's main cultures, periods and techniques is gathered in this collection.

The principle that guided the development of this collection was the belief in the universality of human creation and the fascination with the vitality and richness of the multiplicity of cultures. Among the main focuses of the collection are Spanish Colonial Paintings, Brazilian Modern Art, African masks, Asian works of art, European Academic Art, Russian icons and Jewish, Christian and Islamic liturgical works of art.