Antique Russian Icon Virgin Mary of Jerusalem, 20th century, 27x21 cm
Antique Russian icon depicting the Virgin Mary of Jerusalem, belonging to the Hodegetria type in which the Virgin indicates Christ as the way of salvation. In this variant the Child is slightly turned toward His Mother, while Mary directs an intense, contemplative gaze toward Him, a feature less common in classical Hodegetria representations. According to tradition, the icon was painted by the evangelist St. Luke in Gethsemane roughly fifteen years after the Resurrection. In the 5th century Empe...
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Antique Russian icon depicting the Virgin Mary of Jerusalem, belonging to the Hodegetria type in which the Virgin indicates Christ as the way of salvation. In this variant the Child is slightly turned toward His Mother, while Mary directs an intense, contemplative gaze toward Him, a feature less common in classical Hodegetria representations. According to tradition, the icon was painted by the evangelist St. Luke in Gethsemane roughly fifteen years after the Resurrection. In the 5th century Emperor Leo I transferred it from Jerusalem to Constantinople; the image is then said to have reached Kherson in Crimea and later Kiev, where Prince Vladimir placed it in the Saint Sophia Cathedral after the Christianization of Rus'. Over the centuries the icon was highly venerated and became intertwined with Russia's religious and political history, until its transfer to Moscow in the 16th century. This work is executed on an antique wooden panel prepared with levkas and hand-painted in egg tempera according to the Russian iconographic tradition. It is accompanied by an expert appraisal and presented in an elegant blue velvet case.
Provenance: Moscow, Russia.
Technique: egg tempera on wood with levkas preparation.
Materials: wooden panel with levkas ground.
Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm.
Period: 20th century.