The Trinity

Three angels sit around a table bearing a single chalice, their bodies inclining into a closed circle, the oak of Mamre and Abraham's house reduced to bare signs behind them — the Old Testament visitation read purely as an image of the Trinity, with neither Abraham nor Sarah present to distract from it. Andrei Rublev painted it for the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius in the early fifteenth century, and it became the canonical model against which later Russian icons were measured, formally endorsed as such by the Stoglav council of 1551. Held by the Tretyakov Gallery from 1929, it was transferred in 2024 back to the Trinity Lavra at Sergiyev Posad over the objections of conservators.