Beschreibung:

POST MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN BAPTISMAL LOCKET WITH KAZANSKAYA MOTHER OF GOD Late 19th century AD An oval silver locket with painted icon of the Kazanskaya Mother of God (Казанская Богоматерь) to one frame, stamped 'PB' and '84.??'; 'MC' monogram to the lid marked 'PB' and indistinct second mark, Cyrillic text 'Спаси и Cохрани' (save and preserve) to the reverse. 22 grams, 55mm (2 1/4"). Fine condition. Provenance From a private collection formed in the 1990s. Footnotes According to the tradition, the icon was found in 1579 in the city of Kazan by a little girl, to whom the Virgin Mary revealed the location. A special church dedicated to the icon was built in Kazan in 1679, but later it had been moved to Moscow and a copy was installed in the new cathedral of Kazan. In 1821 the original icon of Our Lady of Kazan moved again, this time to St. Petersburg, where it was installed in the new Kazan Cathedral in the heart of the city. By this time the icon had become extremely popular and there were nine separate miracle working copies of it around the country. By the middle 19th century, the original icon was encrusted in diamonds, massive emeralds and a gold cover. Like many other religious artefacts, this icon was taken out of Russia during the Bolshevik revolution and nowadays, it is believed that the original is displayed in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan after it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church by Vatican.