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Late 17th - early of 18th century (after 1697). From the St. Nicholas
Church in Tolmachi, Moscow.
The icon is a copy of the miracle-working image of Our Lady the
Joy of All Afflicted of the Transfiguration Church at Ordynka, Moscow.
The worship started in 1688, after it cured the sister of Patriarch Joachim.
The icon, probably, appeared in the church after it was rebuilt of stone
in 1685. The history of this icon is unclear. According to one version,
it was in the Church of Our Lady the Joy of All Afflicted at Ordynka on
the site of the Transfiguration Church, till it was closed in the Soviet
years. According to another hypothesis, the miraculous icon was taken
to St. Petersburg on order of Natalia, a sister of Peter the Great, in
1711, while a copy remained in Moscow. The Moscow and St. Petersburg images
have notable iconographic differences.
Known in Russia since the 1680s, the iconography of Our Lady the Joy of
All Afflicted emerged under spectacular influences of several Roman Catholic
types. Hence its many variants, largely differing on many points. They
have only one feature in common — the figures of sufferers praying to
the Virgin, the Protectress interceding for them. The St. Petersburg icon,
with no such figures, is the only exception. The iconographic variant
which includes both the Moscow and St. Petersburg images has the crowned
Virgin in the centre (often portrayed standing on the moon), holding the
Child, also crowned, on Her left arm, and surrounded by a halo — the Roman
Catholic type ascending to the words of Revelation about the «woman
clothed with the sun» (Rev 12:1). The variant to which the
miracle-working icon of Moscow belonged adds to this image a crowd of
sufferers divided in six groups — seniors, the unclothed, the sick, the
afflicted, the hungry and travellers, all consoled by angels at Her bidding.
These figures directly illustrate the troparion to the icon, written in
a cartouche in the lower part of the composition. The Moscow icon has
one definitive characteristic — four saints to both sides of the Virgin,
above the sufferers — Sergii of Radonezh, Theodore of Sykeon, Gregory
Decapolites and Barlaam of Khutyn.
The icon repeats the iconography of the Moscow miraculous image closely
enough, and almost fully coincides with it in size. It may be seen as
one of the oldest replicas of this type. It changes the arrangement of
the four supplementary saints, and replaces St. Gregory Decapolites by
Gregory of Neocaesarea — perhaps, due to the topographical closeness of
the St. Nicholas Church at Tolmachi and the Church of St. Gregory of Neocaesarea
at Polyanka. |
