The icon belongs to the co-called “Crusader” group of icons, and its theme refers to the holy site of Sinai and Sinai iconography. The curled eyebrows on the face of John and his tousled hair indicate that the artist was familiar with Byzantine iconography, while the young Moses follows middle-Byzantine prototypes. However, the halos of light clearly follow the Western tradition. At the same time, the upright postures of the bodies, the simple, clearcut articulation of the faces, and the simplified but realistically rendered folds in the fabrics betray a Western artist, most probably Venetian, that worked in Sinai during the third quarter of the thirteenth century.
