DOI article:
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 Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44936#0018
17
5 cm), executed in tempera on wood, depicts a full-figure
image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child in her
arms, hugging his face to her cheek. The Child takes the
edge of Marys maphorion with his left hand and places
his right hand in his mothers right [Fig. 10]. The icon,
generally dated to around 1350, is believed to be a copy
of the Constantinopolitan prototype from the Komneni-
an period or of a fresco with the Virgin Eleousa from the
Parekklesion of the Chora Monastery.67 Branislav Todić
recently moved its date to 1343, associating its execution,
along with that of three other paintings: Christ Pantocra-
tor, John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas, with the relo-
cation of the remains of the monastery’s founder, Stefan
Uroś III Dećanski (1321-1331), from the western part of
the church to the nave, opposite the iconostasis’ northern
part, in 1343.68
It follows from the above that the date of the Decani
iconostasis would set a terminus ad quem of the icono-
graphie type of the Virgin Eleousa taking the hand of the
Child in hers, if the rigour of iconographie typology is to
be assumed as a rule. This feature appears also in other de-
pictions of the Virgin Mary, as for example in an icon with
the Virgin Hodegetria from the fourteenth century (The
State Tret'iakov Gallery, Moscow, inv. no. 1274, OC 118),
formerly ascribed to the Moscow school and nowadays to
the Serbian milieu in the Balkans or a Byzantine painter
who was active there.69 A Slavonic inscription on either
side of Mary’s halo identifies the image as: Mamu Божия
Молебница [Mati Bozhiia Molebnitsa].
The above analysis has shown that the icon with the
Virgin Eleousa in the Cracow Poor Clares convent dis-
plays features that are characteristic of painting of the ear-
ly period of the Palaiologan era, of the fourteenth century.
But closer and more directly comparable analogies should
still be looked for.
It has not been established in what circumstances the
painting found its way to the Cracow convent. The al-
ready mentioned icon with the Virgin Hagiosoritissa has
been associated with the Blessed Salomea on the basis of
an enigmatic archival note dealing with the paintings and
67 M. Corovic-Ljubinkovic, ‘Dve dećanske ikone Bogorodice
Umiljenija’, Sfarinar, 3-4, 1952-1953, pp. 83-87; W. Felicetti-
-Liebenfels, Geschichte der byzantinischen Ikonenmalerei,
Olten and Lausanne, 1956, p. 87, fig. 109A; V.J. Djurić, Icônes de
Yougoslavie, Belgrade, 1961, pp. 102-103, pl. XLV; A. Grabar, ‘Les
images de la Vierge de tendresse. Type iconographique et thème
(à propos de deux icônes à Decani)’, Zograf, 6,1977, p. 25, fig. 1.
68 B. Todić, ‘Ikonostas u Dećanima - prvobitni slikani program
i njegove poznije izmene’, Zograf, 36, 2012, pp. 115-129.
69 V.I. Antonova, N.E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopi-
si XI - nachala XVIII vv., vol. I, Moscow, 1963, pp. 246-247, fig.
152; Vizantiia. Bałkany. Rus'. Ikony kontsa XIII - pervoï poloviny
XV veka. Katalog vystavki, Gosudarstvennaia Tret'iakovskaia ga-
lereia, Moscow, 1991, cat. no. 74, pp. 243-244; Gosudarstvennaia
Tret'iakovskaia galereia. Katalog sobraniia, vol. 1: Drevnerusskoe
iskusstvo X - nachala XV veka, pp. 173-175 (as in note 50).
10. The Virgin Eleousa, c. 1343 (detail). Photo: www.decani.org
images donated by the convent’s foundress, which men-
tions only: ‘tabulae et ymagines depictae’.70 Should it be
assumed that also the icon with the Virgin Eleousa was
included in the plural form of the nouns? It is known that,
before becoming a nun, Salomea had spent many years,
first in the Halych Rus' and then in the Hungarian court,
where she could have easily come into contact with ven-
erated icons.
A POSTSCRIPT
Romuald Biskupski has noted a popularity of the ima-
ges of the Virgin Eleousa in the icon painting on the
Polish-Ukrainian borderland from the seventeenth
to the nineteenth century, stemming, as he asserts,
from a copperplate engraving signed by Raphael Sade-
ler, from 1614.71 The engraving bears a striking resem-
blance to a print reproduced by N. P. Likhachev which
shows an image venerated in the Roman church of San
Francesco (a Ripa) in Trastevere.72 Both prints present
70 A. Różycka-Bryzek, Matka Boska Hagiosoritissa, p. 43 (as in note 1).
71 R. Biskupski, ‘O dwu wariantach przedstawienia Matki Boskiej
Eleusy w sztuce ukraińskiej XVII-XIX wieku’, in Zachodnio-
ukraińska sztuka cerkiewna. Dzieła - twórcy - ośrodki - techni-
ki. Materiały z międzynarodowej konferencji naukowej 10-11 maja
2003 roku, ed. by ƒ. Giemza, Łańcut, 2003, p. 273, fig. 4.
72 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie, fig. 380 (as in note 41).
5 cm), executed in tempera on wood, depicts a full-figure
image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child in her
arms, hugging his face to her cheek. The Child takes the
edge of Marys maphorion with his left hand and places
his right hand in his mothers right [Fig. 10]. The icon,
generally dated to around 1350, is believed to be a copy
of the Constantinopolitan prototype from the Komneni-
an period or of a fresco with the Virgin Eleousa from the
Parekklesion of the Chora Monastery.67 Branislav Todić
recently moved its date to 1343, associating its execution,
along with that of three other paintings: Christ Pantocra-
tor, John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas, with the relo-
cation of the remains of the monastery’s founder, Stefan
Uroś III Dećanski (1321-1331), from the western part of
the church to the nave, opposite the iconostasis’ northern
part, in 1343.68
It follows from the above that the date of the Decani
iconostasis would set a terminus ad quem of the icono-
graphie type of the Virgin Eleousa taking the hand of the
Child in hers, if the rigour of iconographie typology is to
be assumed as a rule. This feature appears also in other de-
pictions of the Virgin Mary, as for example in an icon with
the Virgin Hodegetria from the fourteenth century (The
State Tret'iakov Gallery, Moscow, inv. no. 1274, OC 118),
formerly ascribed to the Moscow school and nowadays to
the Serbian milieu in the Balkans or a Byzantine painter
who was active there.69 A Slavonic inscription on either
side of Mary’s halo identifies the image as: Mamu Божия
Молебница [Mati Bozhiia Molebnitsa].
The above analysis has shown that the icon with the
Virgin Eleousa in the Cracow Poor Clares convent dis-
plays features that are characteristic of painting of the ear-
ly period of the Palaiologan era, of the fourteenth century.
But closer and more directly comparable analogies should
still be looked for.
It has not been established in what circumstances the
painting found its way to the Cracow convent. The al-
ready mentioned icon with the Virgin Hagiosoritissa has
been associated with the Blessed Salomea on the basis of
an enigmatic archival note dealing with the paintings and
67 M. Corovic-Ljubinkovic, ‘Dve dećanske ikone Bogorodice
Umiljenija’, Sfarinar, 3-4, 1952-1953, pp. 83-87; W. Felicetti-
-Liebenfels, Geschichte der byzantinischen Ikonenmalerei,
Olten and Lausanne, 1956, p. 87, fig. 109A; V.J. Djurić, Icônes de
Yougoslavie, Belgrade, 1961, pp. 102-103, pl. XLV; A. Grabar, ‘Les
images de la Vierge de tendresse. Type iconographique et thème
(à propos de deux icônes à Decani)’, Zograf, 6,1977, p. 25, fig. 1.
68 B. Todić, ‘Ikonostas u Dećanima - prvobitni slikani program
i njegove poznije izmene’, Zograf, 36, 2012, pp. 115-129.
69 V.I. Antonova, N.E. Mneva, Katalog drevnerusskoi zhivopi-
si XI - nachala XVIII vv., vol. I, Moscow, 1963, pp. 246-247, fig.
152; Vizantiia. Bałkany. Rus'. Ikony kontsa XIII - pervoï poloviny
XV veka. Katalog vystavki, Gosudarstvennaia Tret'iakovskaia ga-
lereia, Moscow, 1991, cat. no. 74, pp. 243-244; Gosudarstvennaia
Tret'iakovskaia galereia. Katalog sobraniia, vol. 1: Drevnerusskoe
iskusstvo X - nachala XV veka, pp. 173-175 (as in note 50).
10. The Virgin Eleousa, c. 1343 (detail). Photo: www.decani.org
images donated by the convent’s foundress, which men-
tions only: ‘tabulae et ymagines depictae’.70 Should it be
assumed that also the icon with the Virgin Eleousa was
included in the plural form of the nouns? It is known that,
before becoming a nun, Salomea had spent many years,
first in the Halych Rus' and then in the Hungarian court,
where she could have easily come into contact with ven-
erated icons.
A POSTSCRIPT
Romuald Biskupski has noted a popularity of the ima-
ges of the Virgin Eleousa in the icon painting on the
Polish-Ukrainian borderland from the seventeenth
to the nineteenth century, stemming, as he asserts,
from a copperplate engraving signed by Raphael Sade-
ler, from 1614.71 The engraving bears a striking resem-
blance to a print reproduced by N. P. Likhachev which
shows an image venerated in the Roman church of San
Francesco (a Ripa) in Trastevere.72 Both prints present
70 A. Różycka-Bryzek, Matka Boska Hagiosoritissa, p. 43 (as in note 1).
71 R. Biskupski, ‘O dwu wariantach przedstawienia Matki Boskiej
Eleusy w sztuce ukraińskiej XVII-XIX wieku’, in Zachodnio-
ukraińska sztuka cerkiewna. Dzieła - twórcy - ośrodki - techni-
ki. Materiały z międzynarodowej konferencji naukowej 10-11 maja
2003 roku, ed. by ƒ. Giemza, Łańcut, 2003, p. 273, fig. 4.
72 N.P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie, fig. 380 (as in note 41).