Holy Mother Gracious Heaven | Quality lithograph print mounted on wood | Size 16 x 13 x 2 cm
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About this item
- Quality lithograph print mounted on flat wooden panel
- Masterpiece mounted icon
- Blessed in Moscow church
- size: 16 x 13 cm
- Made in Russia
The Holy Mother Gracious Heaven as an iconographic type is based on John the Theologian’s vision. According to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared before him in an oval-shaped sunny halo, mandorla. In such icons, the Holy Mother is portrayed whole-length with the infant Christ in her left arm and surrounded by oval-shaped radiance called “mandorla”. Russia’s first Gracious Heaven icon dates back to the 14th century. It was brought to Moscow by Sophia, the wife of Grand Prince Vasily I and the daughter of Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania. The icon was kept in Smolensk, and in the 17th century royal icon painters made a precise replica. Since then, Holy Mother icons and variations of that iconographic style were often painted in monastery studios and peasant workshops.