icon;
painting
- Museum number
- 1993,1201.1
- Title
- Object: The Mother of God, ‘Joy to all who Grieve’
- Description
-
Icon; painted in egg tempera and silver on wood; in the centre is the full-length figure of the Virgin Mary dressed in a white veil and flanked by two palm branches. Above her, in clouds, is the half-length figure of Christ. To either side of her are groups of suffering humans. Studding the Virgin’s garments, an area to the right of her head, and above her, are depictions of small coins. Inscriptions in Church Slavonic and Greek.
- Production date
- 19thC(late)-20thC(early)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 22.40 centimetres
-
Thickness: 4 centimetres
-
Width: 18.20 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- The image of the Virgin Mary with Child called ‘Joy to all who Grieve’ was initially venerated in Moscow in 1688 when the icon healed a number of people in the church of the Transfiguration at Ordynka. After this event a great number of copies were made and spread throughout Russia. It is said that the miracle-working icon was brought from Moscow to St Petersburg in 1711. One of the later iconographic versions, ‘with coins’, reflects a miracle which occurred on 23 July 1888 when a bolt of lightning burned down the chapel of a glass factory in Sestroretsk near St Petersburg, where a copy of the icon was kept. During the fire 12 coins from a charity box were fused to the surface of the icon. One subsequently fell off, leaving only 11. The icon started to heal people shortly after the fire. A new stone church (designed by A. von Gogen and A. Ivanov) was erected in 1898 on the money donated by the faithful to the icon. From 1888 copies of this icon were much in demand by the citizens of St Petersburg and they were produced in great quantities by the icon painters of Mstera and Kholui, always depicting just the 11 coins.
Published:
Cormack 2007, 137, no. 98
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Made from a single panel; a vertical crack in the upper centre has led to losses of paint, especially on the face of Christ. The painting is covered with a dark coating of ‘olifa’.
- Acquisition date
- 1993
- Acquisition notes
- One of thirty-nine icons seized from a Latvian ship by HM Customs and Excise, Avonmouth.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1993,1201.1
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: IC 101 (Icon Collection number)
