Details

LOT 2181

Russian Icon with Mother of God and Christ

EARLY 19TH CENTURY A.D.

9 x 7 3/4 in. (650 grams, 23 x 19.5 cm).

Representing the Hodegetria, with Mary indicating towards Jesus with her right hand, holding him with her left hand; on the right, a small image of Saint Tekla with veiled head and a long tunica talaris, holding a holy book; the cover set with pearls and semi-precious stones; dedicatory inscription plate in Cyrillic; inscriptions in Greek on the wooden background 'ΜΡ ΘΥ' for 'Mother of God', 'IC XC' for 'Jesus Christ'; over the small image of Saint Tekla Greek inscription 'Ο AΓIA TEKLA'; tempera on wood.

Provenance

Property of a London, UK, gentleman collector.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D’Amato.

Literature

Cf. for an icon of Hodegetria with a similar cover, see the Smolenskaya Icon of the Novodevichi Convent in Moscow, in Smirnova, E., ‘Contextualizing Some Byzantine and Russian Images of the Mother of God and Saints from the British Museum’ in Museum of Russian Icons, August 2015, pp.1-15, fig.12 (centre).

Footnotes

The icon, probably Greek in origin and later covered with beat work in Russia, shows the Virgin in the attitude of Mother of Consolation, or in that of Hodegetria. This is the iconographical type of Virgin Mary one encounters most frequently in an Eastern Orthodox church or home, Hodegetria meaning 'Mother of God Pointing the Way'. The Virgin Mary is shown with the Christ on her lap, her eyes looking at the viewer and her right hand indicating Christ, seeming to say 'Follow Him'. Later icons of the Hodegetria were adorned with gilt-silver covers and jewels like this one.