Icon depicting the "Mother of God of Tikhvin", egg tempera and gold leaf on panel, Moscow Academy, early 19th century. Dimensions: 26.2 x 31.3 cm Estimate: 2,200.00/2,800.00 euros Item is accompanied by our certificate of authenticity. The icon, made with egg tempera and gold leaf on panel by an artist from the Moscow Academy in the early 19th century, depicts the Mother of God of Tikhvin, one of the most venerated miraculous images in Russia. The Madonna is depicted with her head inclined towards the Child, who crosses his right leg under the other. This icon is a version of the effigy of the Mother of God of Tikhvin, a Marian acheiropoietic icon miraculously appeared, at the end of the 14th century, on the Tikhvina River in the territory of Novgorod, where the Church of the Dormition of the Madonna was later built and, in 1560, the Tikhvinsky Monastery. The monastery escaped the Swedish siege in the years 1613-1615 through the intercession of the Holy Virgin invoked before the miraculous icon. During the occupation of 1941, the icon was taken from the monastery and taken first to Germany, then to the USA where it was kept in the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Chicago. In the year 2004 the icon was returned to Russia and brought back to the Tikhvinsky Monastery. The icon reproduces the Byzantine type of the Hodegetria (according to tradition painted by Saint Luke), i.e. of the one who shows the way to God and eternal salvation: Mary points to Jesus with her right hand, while turning her gaze to the spectator, as if to indicate to men that the true path is towards Christ. The Child blesses the mother, while crossing his legs showing the bare sole of one foot, perhaps in reference to a passage from Genesis (3:15). In the 17th and 18th centuries it was among the most venerated sacred images in Russia and numerous versions were made, among which is one kept in the Uffizi Galleries, signed by Vasilij Grjaznov, and dated July 16, 1728. The devotion continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and the icon presented here, in a good state of preservation and of fine artistic craftsmanship, is an example of the private devotion dedicated to it.
Period: Early 19th century