Notes on an icon of the Virgin Mary with the Child in the monastery of Vatopedi, Athos. (pl. 82-83)

Abstract

After a detailed description the icon is dated in the first quarter of the fourteenth century as there are strong similarities between this icon and the icon of the Virgin Psycosostria at Ochrid. The most interesting iconographical detail of the icon is the gesture of the right hand of the Virgin touching the foot of Christ. This gesture, which is common in many byzantine representations of the Virgin with Christ of the 13th - 14th century, has been recently attributed to Italian influence on byzantine art (s. note 15). But this gesture is found in several byzantine works of art of the 10th-12th century (s. notes 16, 17, 18) ( among which is included the mosaic Hodegetria of the Church of Koimisis at Nicaea ). Moreover the character of this gesture in byzantine art is quite different from the realistic gesture of the Italian Madonnas, and can be compared with the protecting gesture of Fathers of the Church touching the books they hold. So the author thinks that the distribution of this iconographical detail in the 13th-14th centuries must be attributed to the revival of ancient iconographical types, which characterises the Palaeologian Byzantine Art.