Caring for your icon

What is inside the box

The piece travels flat, wrapped in acid free neutral paper and packed with foam at all four corners, inside a double wall box. The insurance covers the declared value.

• The icon, with the fixing already fitted on the back.
• The certificate, with the serial number and what the piece exactly is.
• A card with these same instructions, in your language.
• If it is a gift, the dedication on a separate card and no paper with the price inside the box.

What the certificate says and what it is for

The certificate does not say the piece is valuable. It says exactly what it is: chromography on Nordic pine panel, with mixed technique polychromy and a hand finish in our own workshop. That sentence is what protects you. In this same price band there are sellers who call this hand painting, and anyone who knows how to look spots it at once. With the certificate, what you bought and what you received are the same thing, and it is in writing.

• Unique serial number, recorded in the workshop.
• Devotion of the piece and the place its model comes from.
• Format, measurements, thickness and real weight of your panel.
• Technique declared without embellishment, and date it left the workshop.

Where it goes

Wood moves with humidity and with heat. Choosing the wall well on the first day saves you the only long term problem these pieces have.

• In an Orthodox home the place is the corner facing east, and the piece goes in plain sight, not inside a closed cabinet.
• Out of direct sunlight. Sun from a south facing window drains the colour in two summers.
• Not the bathroom, and not the kitchen wall above the hob. Steam and grease are the two things that do not forgive.
• Never above a radiator or beside a hot air outlet.
• If the wall is an outside wall and poorly insulated, it sweats in winter. Leave a couple of millimetres of air with a felt pad behind.

How to hang it

The panel arrives with the fixing in place. Nothing has to be drilled into the piece.

• It weighs 0.6 kg in 16x24, 1.2 kg in 30x30 and 1.8 kg in 30x42. On solid wall an ordinary hook is more than enough.
• On a hollow partition or plasterboard, use a wall plug. A plain nail works loose with the weight and the vibration of the door.
• The right height is the eye level of someone standing, not of the sofa. An icon is not looked at from below.
• If you stand it on a piece of furniture instead of hanging it, put a stop behind it: the edge is narrow and it tips.

How to clean it

This is where most pieces get ruined, and always with the best intentions. The rule is short: dry and gentle.

• A dry cotton cloth. Nothing else.
• Never water, alcohol, glass cleaner, furniture wax, oil or any household product. None of them.
• For the edges and the relief, a soft natural bristle brush, a large watercolour brush will do.
• Once a month is enough. Cleaning too much wears the final coat just as cleaning too little lets the dust take hold.

Candles, incense and oil lamp

Smoke is the slow enemy. It does not ruin the piece in a day, it yellows it over five years, and by the time you notice there is no way back without restoration.

• No flame directly underneath. Soot rises vertically and settles on the lower edge.
• A good hand span of clearance at least, and better beside it than below it.
• Keep the oil lamp on a separate shelf. If it drips, oil in the wood does not come out.
• If a candle has been in place for a while, look at the lower edge against the light: it shows there before it shows on the image.

If something happens

Write to us before trying to fix it. Most of the damage that reaches the workshop is repairable, and most of what is beyond repair was ruined trying to fix it at home. If the piece arrived damaged in transit, photograph the box before throwing it away: without that photo the insurance does not cover it.