19th C. extremely fine painted and gilded ICON Saint Barbara with chalice cup . Sgraffito, relief and an incredible punchwork tracery background

An Antique ICON of considerable quality and extremely fine hand excised detail. Real water gilding. The sunburst halo is sgraffito [ grooves scrathed into the gesso , beneath the bole and gold leaf ] , circled by single blow punchwork dots . The background tracery is incredible and is made by rows of single blow ‘ punches ‘ ; hit by rounded punch and hammer , dot by dot . The punchwork is done as the final stage on top of the  gold leaf unlike the sgraffito . Circa 1880