3 In 2010 six icons were donated to the Princeton University Art Museum by Ann Angleton Hyde in memory of her father, Phocas Angleton (1911–1997). 1 Categorized as “Post- Byzantine,” the icons belong to a large group of religious paintings that derive from the Byzantine tradition but were executed in the early modern period. Dating between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, the icons exemplify the survival and transformation of Byzantine art following the dissolution of the empire and the inal fall of Constanti- nople in 1453. 2 The Museum’s icon additions, which were painted in diferent regions ruled by various powers, all within the Greek-speaking territories of the former empire, underscore the socio-religious complexity of the early modern Mediterranean world and the signiicant role of Post-Byzantine art within it. 3 On account of the wide range in the dates of production and various provenances of the Angleton icons, a study of selected paintings from the group may contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what is meant by “Post-Byzantine” art. 4 To date, the term has been vaguely employed to describe a period— the centuries of art that followed the fall of the capital — or to deine the style of Orthodox art pro- duced after 1453 with little acknowledgment of the parallel and diverse artistic trends that developed across Orthodox communities in disparate environments. 5 Rather than dis- miss the term “Post-Byzantine,” as has even been suggested, let us bring precision to what it connotes. I propose that Post-Byzantine art be deined as the Orthodox Christian art produced in the early modern period that stems from the cultural traditions of late Byzantium. Characterized by its stylistic and iconographic lexibility, it simultaneously adheres to, if not promotes, the doctrinal tenets of Orthodoxy. 6 In this article, I focus on four outstanding icons in the acquisition: a small Cretan work of the Virgin (ig. 1); a Baroque-framed Saint Nicholas from the Ionian Islands (see ig. 8); a carved icon of Saint Anthony from mainland Greece (see ig. 11); and an elaborate rendition of the scene of the Communion of the Apostles, possibly from the Cyclades (see ig. 14). 7 These icons from the Angleton Col- lection are notable for their distinctive styles, underscoring their manufacture in diferent regions of what constitutes Toward a Deinition of “Post-Byzantine” Art: The Angleton Collection at the Princeton University Art Museum Emily L. Spratt modern-day Greece. The inely painted icon of the Virgin, a product of the famous School of Crete, is representative of one of the painting styles that would come to widely inlu- ence icon workshops in the Greek-speaking Venetian ter- ritories and even those in the Orthodox communities of the Ottoman-held regions. Closely related to this work is the icon of Saint Nicholas, which relects the popularity of emulating the style of the Cretan school of painting, par- ticularly in the Ionian Islands. By contrast, the icon of Saint Anthony, which was most likely produced on the Ottoman mainland, is rendered in a more conservative Byzantine style; it is notable for the design of its ornate engaged frame, which was popular in the eighteenth century in diferent contexts. Finally, the early-nineteenth-century Holy Com- munion of the Apostles demonstrates the ongoing appeal of the style promulgated by the School of Crete in painting as late as the period of the Greek state’s formation (1821). 8 BETWEEN EAST AND WEST: THE CRETAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING AND THE ICON OF THE HEAD OF THE VIRGIN After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the artistic center of the eastern Orthodox world was repositioned from the shores of the Bosporus to the coasts of Crete, an island that had been under Venetian rule since 1211. At the cross- roads of the Mediterranean, Crete had already gained rec- ognition as an important center of icon painting in the late Middle Ages. 9 By the turn of the seventeenth century, when the Princeton icon of the Virgin was painted, new patterns of cultural exchange had already been irmly established on account of Venetian commerce. East–West cultural interac- tions, which followed the direction of trade routes, are clearly evidenced in the stylistic diversity of Cretan art. For example, the International Gothic style, which was popular in fourteenth- and ifteenth-century Western medieval painting, was widely inluential in Crete from the ifteenth to the seventeenth century. 10 The softened features, long lowing lines, and delicacy in execution of this late medieval style could blend magniicently with the increasingly nat- uralistic, chromatically rich, and emotionally moving art Figure 1. Post-Byzantine, School of Crete: Head of the Virgin, ca. 1600. Tempera on wood, 17 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm. Princeton University Art Museum, gift of Anne Angleton Hyde (2010-231)