DOI Artikel:
Smorąg Różycka, Małgorzata: ‘She begged the child: Let me embrace thee, Lord!’ A Byzantine icon with the Virgin Eleousa in the Poor Clares Convent in Cracow
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44936#0014
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[‘Laskaiushchaia’, caressing], referring it to various icono-
graphie and compositional variants of a portrayal of a ten-
der relationship between the Virgin and the Christ Child,
such as kissing, hugging against the cheek or touching the
face.36 At the same time, she admitted that the epithet had
appeared only on late icons, in the post-Byzantine era.37 38 It
was mentioned, among other denominations of the Vir-
gin used in inscriptions on icons, by Dionysius of Four-
na in his painters manual, the HermeneiaA According to
Etingof, in Byzantium, the composition in question was
imbued with complex symbolic and theological content
combining the love of Mary-Ecclesia and the sacrificial
Christ. The tenderness of the Virgin and the Christ Child
- her son - is a simultaneous expression of Gods love
of the people and unified love of the faithful of Christ,
the Incarnate Logos.39 Of different opinion was Anasta-
sia Drandaki who assumed that the term Glykophilousa
did not refer to the Virgin but to the mutual relationship
between two persons, in this case, between Mary and her
son. In contrast, the epithet Eleousa referred to the Moth-
er of God.40
In the normative typology of Marian iconography, ini-
tiated by Nikolai Pyotrovych Likhachev and Nikodim
Pavlovych Kondakov, toponymie or poetically-theologi-
cal epithets, borrowed from written devotional tradition
and identified in inscriptions on paintings, were ascribed
to particular iconographie and compositional formulae of
the images of the Virgin.41 And although it was noted, al-
ready a long time ago, that artistic tradition considerably
differs from iconographie typology, the terms introduced
by Likhachev and Kondakov have been still employed in
research on Byzantine (and to some degree also on West-
ern medieval) painting.
Therefore, it has been customary to use the epithet
of the Eleousa for an image of the Virgin hugging to her
cheek the Christ Child, who is usually holding a scroll -
a symbol of the Incarnate Logos - and sometimes encir-
cles Mary’s neck with his arm.
Initially, the research on Byzantine Marian iconography
was dominated by the conviction that the Eleousa type had
originated outside Byzantium. N. P. Likhachev thought that
it emerged in medieval Italian painting and was transplant-
ed to Byzantine art only in its late period, in the Palaiologan
36 Ibidem, pp. 67-97.
37 Ibidem, p. 90.
38 Dionizjusz z Furny, Hermeneia, czyli objaśnienie sztuki ma-
larskiej, trans, by I. Kania, introduction and ed. by M. Smorąg
Różycka, Cracow, 2003, p. 285.
39 O.E. Etingof, Obraz Bogomateri, pp. 52-53 (as in note 35).
40 A. Drandaki, Greek Icons i4th-i8th Century. The Rena Andreadis
Collection, Athens and Milan, 2002, p. 15, n. 1.
41 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie italo-grecheskoi ikono-
pisi: izobrazheniia Bogomateri vproizvedeniiakh italo-grecheskikh
ikonopistsev i ikh vliianie na kompozitsii niekotorykh proslav-
lennykh russkikh ikon. Saint Petersburg, 1911; N.P. Kondakov,
Ikonografiia Bogomateri, 2 vols, Saint Petersburg, 1914-1915.
era, and through the Balkans found its way also to Rus'.42
Kondakov, likewise, did not single out a separate Byzan-
tine type of the Eleousa, referring this term to a variant of
the Virgin Hodegetria.43 The only depiction of the Virgin
hugging the face of the Child against her cheek mentioned
in his work - a relief in San Zeno Chapel in San Marco
in Venice - was called using the Russian word Умиление
[‘Umilenie’, tenderness].44 He considered this term to be
the equivalent of the epithet Eleousa - Милостива [‘Mi-
lostiva’, compassionate].45 The Venetian relief shows the
Christ Child standing on his mothers lap, who holds him
with her right arm at the waist, with her left pointing in
a gesture typical of the Hodegetria images. The inscrip-
tion in Greek above Marys throne uses the epithet Aniketos
(H ANIKHTOEj, calling her ‘the Invincible’.46 According to
Henry Maguire, the relief was executed approximately in
the third quarter of the thirteenth century in the milieu of
Byzantine art and reproduced the no longer surviving pro-
totype image venerated in the Marian shrine in the Blach-
ernai Church in Constantinople, known from its depiction
in a twelfth-century icon in the Monastery of Saint Cath-
erine on Mount Sinai.47 He believed the epithet used in the
inscription to be a later and local, Venetian addition.48
It was not until the original twelfth-century paint layer
of the Virgin of Vladimir icon was revealed in 1918 and
the results of the subsequent research were published by
Mikhail Alpatov and Viktor Nikitych Lazarev in 1925, that
a conviction about the Byzantine origin of compositions
depicting Mary hugging the Child to her cheek and the
name of the Eleousa for such compositions gradually took
hold.49 On the basis of the stylistic features of the faces of
the Virgin and Child - the best preserved fragments of
the painting - Alpatov and Lazarev dated the icon to the
eleventh or twelfth century and attributed it to a Constan-
tinopolitan workshop. This attribution has retained its va-
lidity also in the current literature, although most scholars
date the icon to the first quarter or first half of the twelfth
42 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie, especially pp. 168-175
(as in note 41).
43 N.P. Kondakov, Ikonografiia Bogomateri, vol. II, pp. 183-184 (as
in note 41).
44 Ibidem, pp. 381-382.
45 N.P. Kondakov, Ikonografiia Bogomateri. Sviazi grecheskoi
i russkoi ikonopisi s ital'ianskoiu zhivopis'iu rannego Vozrozhde-
niia. Saint Petersburg, 1910, pp. 150-151.
46 C. Davis, Byzantine Relief Icons in Venice and along the Adriatic
Coast: Orants and other Images of the Mother of God, Munich,
2006, p. 33; H. Maguire, ‘The Aniketos Icon and the Display of
Relics in the Decoration of San Marco’, in San Marco, Byzantium
and the Myths of Venice, ed. by H. Maguire, R. S. Nelson,
Washington, 2010, pp. 91-111.
47 H. Maguire, ‘The Aniketos Icon, p. 98 (as in note 46).
48 Ibidem, p. 104.
49 M. Alpatoff, V. Lasareff, ‘Ein byzantinisches Tafelwerk aus der
Komnenenepoche’, Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen,
46,1925, pp. 140-155-
[‘Laskaiushchaia’, caressing], referring it to various icono-
graphie and compositional variants of a portrayal of a ten-
der relationship between the Virgin and the Christ Child,
such as kissing, hugging against the cheek or touching the
face.36 At the same time, she admitted that the epithet had
appeared only on late icons, in the post-Byzantine era.37 38 It
was mentioned, among other denominations of the Vir-
gin used in inscriptions on icons, by Dionysius of Four-
na in his painters manual, the HermeneiaA According to
Etingof, in Byzantium, the composition in question was
imbued with complex symbolic and theological content
combining the love of Mary-Ecclesia and the sacrificial
Christ. The tenderness of the Virgin and the Christ Child
- her son - is a simultaneous expression of Gods love
of the people and unified love of the faithful of Christ,
the Incarnate Logos.39 Of different opinion was Anasta-
sia Drandaki who assumed that the term Glykophilousa
did not refer to the Virgin but to the mutual relationship
between two persons, in this case, between Mary and her
son. In contrast, the epithet Eleousa referred to the Moth-
er of God.40
In the normative typology of Marian iconography, ini-
tiated by Nikolai Pyotrovych Likhachev and Nikodim
Pavlovych Kondakov, toponymie or poetically-theologi-
cal epithets, borrowed from written devotional tradition
and identified in inscriptions on paintings, were ascribed
to particular iconographie and compositional formulae of
the images of the Virgin.41 And although it was noted, al-
ready a long time ago, that artistic tradition considerably
differs from iconographie typology, the terms introduced
by Likhachev and Kondakov have been still employed in
research on Byzantine (and to some degree also on West-
ern medieval) painting.
Therefore, it has been customary to use the epithet
of the Eleousa for an image of the Virgin hugging to her
cheek the Christ Child, who is usually holding a scroll -
a symbol of the Incarnate Logos - and sometimes encir-
cles Mary’s neck with his arm.
Initially, the research on Byzantine Marian iconography
was dominated by the conviction that the Eleousa type had
originated outside Byzantium. N. P. Likhachev thought that
it emerged in medieval Italian painting and was transplant-
ed to Byzantine art only in its late period, in the Palaiologan
36 Ibidem, pp. 67-97.
37 Ibidem, p. 90.
38 Dionizjusz z Furny, Hermeneia, czyli objaśnienie sztuki ma-
larskiej, trans, by I. Kania, introduction and ed. by M. Smorąg
Różycka, Cracow, 2003, p. 285.
39 O.E. Etingof, Obraz Bogomateri, pp. 52-53 (as in note 35).
40 A. Drandaki, Greek Icons i4th-i8th Century. The Rena Andreadis
Collection, Athens and Milan, 2002, p. 15, n. 1.
41 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie italo-grecheskoi ikono-
pisi: izobrazheniia Bogomateri vproizvedeniiakh italo-grecheskikh
ikonopistsev i ikh vliianie na kompozitsii niekotorykh proslav-
lennykh russkikh ikon. Saint Petersburg, 1911; N.P. Kondakov,
Ikonografiia Bogomateri, 2 vols, Saint Petersburg, 1914-1915.
era, and through the Balkans found its way also to Rus'.42
Kondakov, likewise, did not single out a separate Byzan-
tine type of the Eleousa, referring this term to a variant of
the Virgin Hodegetria.43 The only depiction of the Virgin
hugging the face of the Child against her cheek mentioned
in his work - a relief in San Zeno Chapel in San Marco
in Venice - was called using the Russian word Умиление
[‘Umilenie’, tenderness].44 He considered this term to be
the equivalent of the epithet Eleousa - Милостива [‘Mi-
lostiva’, compassionate].45 The Venetian relief shows the
Christ Child standing on his mothers lap, who holds him
with her right arm at the waist, with her left pointing in
a gesture typical of the Hodegetria images. The inscrip-
tion in Greek above Marys throne uses the epithet Aniketos
(H ANIKHTOEj, calling her ‘the Invincible’.46 According to
Henry Maguire, the relief was executed approximately in
the third quarter of the thirteenth century in the milieu of
Byzantine art and reproduced the no longer surviving pro-
totype image venerated in the Marian shrine in the Blach-
ernai Church in Constantinople, known from its depiction
in a twelfth-century icon in the Monastery of Saint Cath-
erine on Mount Sinai.47 He believed the epithet used in the
inscription to be a later and local, Venetian addition.48
It was not until the original twelfth-century paint layer
of the Virgin of Vladimir icon was revealed in 1918 and
the results of the subsequent research were published by
Mikhail Alpatov and Viktor Nikitych Lazarev in 1925, that
a conviction about the Byzantine origin of compositions
depicting Mary hugging the Child to her cheek and the
name of the Eleousa for such compositions gradually took
hold.49 On the basis of the stylistic features of the faces of
the Virgin and Child - the best preserved fragments of
the painting - Alpatov and Lazarev dated the icon to the
eleventh or twelfth century and attributed it to a Constan-
tinopolitan workshop. This attribution has retained its va-
lidity also in the current literature, although most scholars
date the icon to the first quarter or first half of the twelfth
42 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie, especially pp. 168-175
(as in note 41).
43 N.P. Kondakov, Ikonografiia Bogomateri, vol. II, pp. 183-184 (as
in note 41).
44 Ibidem, pp. 381-382.
45 N.P. Kondakov, Ikonografiia Bogomateri. Sviazi grecheskoi
i russkoi ikonopisi s ital'ianskoiu zhivopis'iu rannego Vozrozhde-
niia. Saint Petersburg, 1910, pp. 150-151.
46 C. Davis, Byzantine Relief Icons in Venice and along the Adriatic
Coast: Orants and other Images of the Mother of God, Munich,
2006, p. 33; H. Maguire, ‘The Aniketos Icon and the Display of
Relics in the Decoration of San Marco’, in San Marco, Byzantium
and the Myths of Venice, ed. by H. Maguire, R. S. Nelson,
Washington, 2010, pp. 91-111.
47 H. Maguire, ‘The Aniketos Icon, p. 98 (as in note 46).
48 Ibidem, p. 104.
49 M. Alpatoff, V. Lasareff, ‘Ein byzantinisches Tafelwerk aus der
Komnenenepoche’, Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen,
46,1925, pp. 140-155-