Hand-painted icons of angels and archangels

The angel looks like an ageless youth, with wings spread or folded behind the shoulders. In the hair there is often a diadem or ribbon; in the hand a slender staff, the sign of the messenger, and sometimes a transparent sphere bearing Christ's monogram or a cross. Archangels are often dressed like dignitaries of the Byzantine court, with tunic and mantle, or in armour in the case of Michael, leader of the heavenly hosts.

Wings and garments are crossed by highlights of gold and light: angels have no light of their own, they reflect God's. This is why, more than in any other subject, the gold of the panel becomes part of their figure.

• ◆29 September: in the Catholic Church, the feast of the holy archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.
• ◆2 October: memorial of the holy Guardian Angels in the Roman calendar.
• ◆8 November: in the Churches of Byzantine tradition, the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and all the heavenly powers.

Among the oldest surviving Russian icons is the Angel with the Golden Hair, painted in tempera in the second half of the twelfth century and attributed to the Novgorod school, now in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg. Every lock of its hair is traced with fine threads of gold: divine light passing through the figure. It is a perfect example of how, in the icon, gold is not ornament but theology.

Alongside the archangels, the icon also paints the other angelic orders: the six-winged seraphim, as the prophet Isaiah saw them (Is 6:2), and the cherubim, often shown with wings covered in eyes, as in Ezekiel's visions. They appear around the throne of Christ, in domes and in feast icons; three angels are also at the centre of the icon of the Holy Trinity, the Hospitality of Abraham. Like every icon by Concetta Basile, it is fully gilded with 23¾ karat gold, with inscriptions in Greek or Latin, and is commissioned with an offering proportionate to the time and materials of the work.