The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God
first third of the twelfth century
In a glass case in the church attached to the gallery stands the most revered icon in Russia. The Mother of God holds the Christ child against her cheek, and he reaches up to embrace her neck. Her eyes look out at you, dark and sorrowful, as if she already knows what will happen to her son. The image is of the type known as tenderness, and this is its most famous example. Only the two faces and a few fragments are original; the rest has been repainted many times over nine centuries.
The icon was painted in Constantinople in the early twelfth century, probably in an imperial workshop, and brought to Kiev as a gift. The Byzantine painter modelled the faces with soft transitions of olive and rose, and the tilt of the mother's head toward the child, with her long fine nose and small mouth, sets the pattern that thousands of Russian icons would follow. Look at the child's foot, turned to show its sole, a detail that later painters copied faithfully. The gold ground and the crimson of the robe are largely later restorations.
Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky carried the icon to Vladimir in eleven fifty five, giving it its name, and in thirteen ninety five it was brought to Moscow to protect the city from Tamerlane, who turned back. It became the palladium of the Russian state, present at coronations and credited with saving Moscow more than once. After the revolution it entered the Tretyakov as a work of art, and since nineteen ninety nine it has been kept in this church, where it can be venerated and studied at the same time.
Did You Know? Only the faces of the mother and child survive from the original twelfth century painting; almost everything else has been repainted over the centuries.
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