41. Icon on glass, "The Last Supper", painter Ioan Pop, Făgăraș, first half of the 19th century, rarity, comes from the collection of lawyer Constantin Vișinescu.

Dimensions

width 48 cm, height 43 cm

Description

tempera and gold and silver foil on glaze, whitewashed and painted frame, with strain

PROVENANCE

Constantin Vișinescu was born in 1920 in Constanța. Between 1930-1937 he attended the courses of the "Gheorghe Lazăr" College in Bucharest, and in 1938 he was admitted to two faculties: Law, Letters and Philosophy. At the end of 1940 he is sent to the eastern front against the USSR, where he will take part in the battles for the liberation of Bessarabia. In 1943 he is wounded and declared a war invalid. He ignores this situation and continues to go to the front. In 1944 he becomes a prisoner and is sent to the Wosnesensk camp on the Bug, from where, together with three other comrades, he escapes and reaches the country where he is arrested by the Soviet occupation troops, for desertion. The military prosecution however finds that there is no legal basis for his trial and he is released. As a trainee lawyer, he worked in Istrate Micescu's office and then in Ion Valjan's office. In 1951, being a defense lawyer in the Zionists trial in Bucharest, he is arrested by the regime's Security. After a long investigation, he is sent to the labor camp at the Danube-Black Sea Canal, from where he is released in 1954. After release, he resumes his legal activity and in 1972 he receives from the Federal Republic of Germany government the decoration "Das Verdist Kreuz" for legal merits. In 1990 he established the Romania-Israel Friendship Cultural Association. In 1996, the Presidency of Romania awarded him the "Commemorative Cross of the Second World War" for military services to the Romanian state.