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Fresco of the White Angel and Sleeping Guards at the Sepulchre
in Mileševa Monastery, Serbia.
Photo by Snežana Trifunovic
Mileševa is a Serbian Orthodox monastery located near Prijepolje, in southwest Serbia. It was founded by King Vladislav, in the years between 1234 and 1236. The church has frescoes by the most skillful artists of that time, including one of the most famous in Serbian culture, the "White Angel", which depicts an angel on Christ's tomb.
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| A detail of the Serbian soldiers on the left | A detail of the Serbian soldiers on the right |
The first group of frescoes were produced in the 1230s. The other groups include works from the Ottoman period, to be found in the exonarthex. The upper registers in the narthex represent Christ's earthly life. Below is the resurrection composition on the south wall of the west bay. The frescoes in the narthex and the adjacent chapel were presumably painted in the 1230s and 1240s. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the church was repainted with a new layer of frescoes of which only fragments of the Last Supper under the dome and the Forty Martyrs in the north choir have survived. These frescoes were damaged in a fire, but they happened to save (acting as a protective layer) the earlier and more valuable paintings from the 13th century.