Elijah in the Wilderness (The Raven Feeding Elijah)

This subject is taken from I Kings (17:1–6) and tells the story of how Elijah was fed in the wilderness by a raven sent by God. In the traditional iconography, the prophet sits on a stone with a staff in his hands, against a background of hills running away in whimsical spurs. The brook Cherith flows at his feet, while the raven holds a small red loaf in its beak in the top right corner. Like compositions of the prophet’s fiery ascent into heaven, images of Elijah in the wilderness were extremely popular in Old Russian icon-painting.