Icon Of The Mother Of God Tikhvinskaya, Early 19th Century

This icon, which dates from the beginning of the 19th century, has been carefully preserved and is in particularly good condition. The icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin is, according to legend, one of the icons of the Virgin painted by the evangelist Luke. In the 5th century, from Jerusalem it was moved to Constantinople, where, for it, the basilica of Saint Mary of Blachernae was built. Unlike the Virgin of Smolensk, that of Tikhvin is softer, more tender. The Virgin, dressed in the classic maphorion, holds the child Christ with her left hand and brings the observer's gaze into her body with her right hand, slightly leaning towards Jesus. She gazes hypnotically into the distance, her gaze suggesting a contemplative trance, as well as a deep solemnity toward her Son. Christ blesses his mother with his right hand and holds a sealed scroll in his left. The sole of Christ's right foot faces the viewer, a recognizable feature of Tikhvin typology. The representation of the Child here is known as Emmanuel, the divine Logos. Indeed, although he is small, in fact the size of a child, he has a mature face, and therefore "eternally young and old at the same time". The iconography of this icon combines the solemnity of the Virgin of the Byzantine Hodigitria type and the maternal side of the Virgin Eleousa. The colors are bright, further adding to the solemn atmosphere, enhanced with gold. In 1383, 70 years before the fall of Constantinople, the icon disappeared from Blachernae and appeared on the waters of Lake Ladoga, in the principality of Novgorod. Then she moves to Tikhvin where a monastery will be founded in her honor. At first, on the site of the appearance of the icon, a wooden church was built in honor of the Assumption of the Virgin and then, thanks to the efforts of Grand Duke Vasily IV (1505-1533), a church stone is erected. In 1560, by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, a monastery was built in Tikhvin, surrounded by a stone wall. At the time of Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Macarius, the miraculous icon was regularly transported to Moscow, before being permanently preserved in the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod.