Description
The image is five feet high by three and a quarter feet wide (117 x 79 cm) - very large for an icon, especially one with an early date. It is painted on a thick cedar panel. Mary wears a gold-trimmed dark blue mantle over a purple/red tunic. The letters in Greek at the top identify Mary as "Mother of God", as is usual in Byzantine art (Christ may originally have had an inscription under later re-painting). Christ is holding a book in his left hand, presumably a Gospel Book. His right hand is raised in a blessing gesture, and it is Mary not he who looks directly out at the viewer.
The folded together position of Mary's hands distinguishes this image as a version of the earlier type from before the development of the iconography of the Hodegetria image in the 10th century, where she points to Christ with her right hand. "Rather than offering the Child, she keeps his body closer to hers and seeks physical and tactile contact with him" However the few other examples of this type do not have the Virgin's hands folded together - the right hand holds Christ's knee.
Although neither wear crowns, the holding by Mary in her right hand of a mappa (or mappula, a sort of embroidered ceremonial handkerchief), originally a consular symbol, later an imperial one, means this image is probably one of the type showing Mary as Regina coeli or "Queen of Heaven".
Read more about this topic: Salus Populi Romani
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