9. The Nativity of the Mother of God

First half of the19th century.
Wood, lewkas, tempera. Hand painted with egg tempera over a leaf of gold.
Size: 35,5x30,5x2,5 cm.

Outstanding Russian Icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God. High quality, school painting, painted in the 17 th century traditions. Extremely detailed and complex depicting. Bright colors. Inscription in Cyrillic on the top read: "Nativity of the Mother of God". The left border with the Guardian Angel, St. Martyr Barbara and on the right the Holy Basil Great, St. Tsarina Olga. Rare Icon. In good condition.

In the festival of the Nativity of the Mother of God (September 8th), the Church celebrates the most holy human birth, whose "fruit most pure" was elect and sanctified from the moment of conception (Conception of Saint Anna, celebrated December 9th). Like the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the birth of the Mother of God, promised by an Angel after the parents had long been sterile, finds Old Testament antecedents which are habitually considered as prefigurations of the Resurrection. But the Nativity of the Mother of God is more than a figure; for in the person of Saint Anna - a woman freed from her sterility to bring into the world a Virgin who would give birth to God incarnate - it is our nature which ceases to be sterile in order to start bearing the fruits of grace. The miraculous birth of the Holy Virgin is not due to an arbitrary action of God, entering in to break historical continuity: it is a stage of the Providence which watches over the safety of the world, arduously preparing the Incarnation of the Word, a stage which precedes the last decisive act - the Annunciation, when the chosen Virgin will assent to be "the King's Palace, in which is accomplished the perfect mystery of the two natures reunited in Christ". "Mystery goes before greater mystery": "the sterile door is opened and the virginal Door comes forth" to "introduce Christ into the world". If "the name, Mother of God, contains the whole history of the divine economy in the world", the ancestor of the Virgin - this "Flower of Jesse" - could be called "David, the Father of God" and the name of "parents of God" would belong, in the first place, to Joachim and Anna. Adam and Eve, parents of fallen humanity, would then rejoice to see their descendant duce "the Mother of Life", "the Source of incorruption". The iconography of the Nativity of the Mother of God habitually shows us Saint Anna half lying on a bed, surrounded by servants getting ready to wash the newly-born Infant. The Holy Virgin is generally represented in swaddling clothes, in the arms of a midwife seated on a stool near the basin filled with water.

This icon has collection level.

Price: 3500 Euro