Description

This rare icon depicts the Mother of God ‘Rock Not Hewn by Hands’, a symbolic iconography that emerged in Russia in the sixteenth century. The Mother of God holds the Christ Child on her left arm and points towards him with her right hand. A mountain, a rainbow and the celestial bodies of the sun and moon are depicted on her maphorion.

The iconography refers to a vision from the Book of Daniel, in which a rock not cut by human hands breaks away from a mountain. In the Christian interpretation, the mountain represents the Mother of God and the stone represents Christ. The image was therefore understood as a prefiguration of the Virgin Birth.