Icon depicting the Madonna and Child, painting on wood panel, embossed silver-plated copper Riza, 19th century

Icon depicting the Madonna and Child, painting on wood panel, embossed silver-plated copper Riza, 19th century Measures: cm 42 x 32 Price range between Euro 3,500.00-4,500.00 Item accompanied by a certificate of authenticity The icon originating from the Greek-Orthodox areas was made in the 19th century and features a painting on a wooden panel and an embossed silver and gold-plated copper riza. The work depicts the Madonna and Child. According to the tradition of the Church of the Christian East, the first iconographer of the Virgin would have been the evangelist Saint Luke, who would have portrayed the Madonna live according to three main iconographic types from which the three most widespread canonical types derive. The Mother of God called "of Tenderness" (Theotókos Eléousa), holds the Child tight in a tender embrace; the Mother of God called "Orante" or "of the Sign" (Theotókos Panagía) who holds her arms in a sign of prayer; The Mother of God called "who indicates the Way" (Theotókos Hodigítria), with her hand indicating the Child in her arms. The icon in question responds to this last type. Here the Mother of God indicates the Divine Son with her hand, as the only 'Way of Salvation'. This is a particularly solemn Marian representation. The Virgin, represented in half-length, is reclined towards the Child placed on her left. The Son of God, despite being depicted as an infant in the arms of his Mother, already possesses the features of an adult, signifying his awareness of the redemptive predestination, that is, of his future Passion, Death and Resurrection for the salvation of mankind. Jesus imparts the blessing with his right hand. An icon is not simply a painting with a religious subject. Unlike Western art, which from around 1300 moves away from this conception, the icon is the invocation of the presence of what is depicted, a prayer that passes through the materiality of colors, shapes, lines. The icon really favors the encounter with the Lord, with the Mother of God, with the Saints for those who approach it with faith. That is, it is a sacramental. The Second Council of Nicaea (787), the last of the undivided Church, recognized its legitimacy, stating that "the believer who venerates the icon venerates the reality of the one who has been reproduced in it". This icon is equipped with a rich riza, or a decorative covering of the icon that mostly affects the halos, the background and the vestments, leaving only the faces, hands and feet of the characters represented uncovered). The riza of this icon is in embossed and silver-plated copper. This is a valuable work of chiseling with a style that was widespread in the nineteenth century. Presumably the work was intended to occupy a privileged position, exposed to veneration inside a rich private house. The elaborate ornamental motifs of the riza are emphasized thanks to the preciousness of the gold on the halos of the Virgin and Child. Good condition.