Finely executed image of Our Lady of Smolensk. Christ's himation is decorated with intense chrysigraphy. The background is stripped to gesso.
Our Lady of Smolensk is the name of an ancient miracle-working icon and one of the most highly venerated icons in Russia. According to tradition, after the fall of Constantinople, the original icon painted by St. Luke surfaced in Russia, where it was placed in the Assumption Cathedral in Smolensk and therefore referred to as Our Lady of Smolensk. The original icon, dated by art historians to the 11th century, is now believed to have been destroyed by fire during the German occupation of Smolensk in 1941, but a great number of copies were made throughout the century, some of considerable historical and artistic value of their own.
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