Icon: The Dormition of Mary

tempera on wood; 14 x 18 x 2 cm.
Russia, 19th–20th centuries.
In the center, on a richly decorated purple bed, lies the Virgin Mary in a dark red maforion; above the bed stands the figure of Jesus Christ in a golden mandorla, surrounded by angels; Christ holds the soul of the Mother of God in his left hand in the form of an infant wrapped in white; around the bed, in two compact groups, stand the grieving apostles and church hierarchs in liturgical vestments (polistyrions). The background of the composition is framed by two symmetrical, traditional sacred buildings with distinctive architecture. At the bottom is a decorative inscription in Church Slavonic, identifying the depiction as an icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God and referencing a specific variant (likely the “Pskov-Pechersk” variant).