 "Our Lady of Vladimir"
Beginning of 12th C. the icon was brought from Constantinople to Kiev. Prince Andrei Bogolubsky took the icom with him when he acquired the throne of Vladimir. Though some miracles of the icon were known in Kiev, the peak of its glory came in Vladimir. When Tamerlane's horde invaded Russia in 1395, the image was brought in Moscow for heavenly intercession to ward off the city's doom - and miraculous deliverance did come. It came to Moscow for good in 1480. In the next century the icon became the most important among Russian holy relics.
The image belong to the iconographic type known as Tenderness (Umilenie) or Eleousa. It prototyped many Russian iconographic variants of the Virgin Tenderness, connected with some miraculous icons of local worship.
Byzantium, Constantinople, early 12th.C. |
