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Icon nb 48
Size : 50 x 29 cm.
Linden board
Gilded haloes . Egg tempera.
A variation of the praying Virgin of the catacombs, she symbolizes the christian soul praising and adoring God. She carries on her chest the medallion of glory containing her Son. This medallion is the symbol of the divinity and means that the First born before the centuries inhabited the virginal womb of Mary.
The tradition saw in this icon an of the prophecy of Isaiah in the times of king Achaz which is the veiled advertisement of the birth of the Son of God (Is. VII, 13 - 14).
The child Jesus, in the byzantine tradition, is never represented as a tiny baby, because he is also the Verb. It always wears the clothing of the adults and only his reduced size indicates that it is about a child.
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