Icon - Kazanskaja - Silver, Wood - The Mother of God of Kazan

A Central Russian icon depicting the Mother of God of Kazan, patron of the Housewives covered with a gilt silver rizza, hallmarked Moscow ( mark of St. George slaying the dragon) by an unidentified master active between 1867-1872. 32,5 x 28 cm. The icon is painted on a linden wood panel with oak sponka.
The silver rizza weighs 245 grammes and is hammered out by hand.
The Kazanskaja icon appeared in 1579 in a village near Kazan in Tartarstan to a young girl. The girl was asked to go to the major and parish priest of the village to announce the apparition. Both gentleman refused to believe her. At the end only the mother of the girl went with her to identify the icon and they discovered the icon under the fundaments of a delapidated house. They brought it to the village church and soon people from far and near came to venerate the icon and many were cured. The fame of this miracle working icon spread fast. In 1711 Tzar Peter the Great came to visit Kazan and took the icon to his newly established capital, St. Petersburg. The Kazan Cathedral was built on Nevski Prospect to house the Kazanskaja. It was stolen in 1943 by the Germans from the Kazan kathedral, but it appeared in the Vatican and Pope John Paul the Second gave it back to Russia in 2004. It was placed again in the Kazan cathedral in Saint Petersburg where numerous just wed brides come to venerate the Kazan Mother of God.

The Kazanskaja is the type of the portrait bust icon. This icon is stricktly classical Russian without western influence.
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