Lot 73
A RARE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN PRESENTATION ICON OF SAINT ANNA AND THE MOTHER OF GOD, 1893.  Naturalistically rendered against on ornately incised gilt ground of strap work in the Neo-Byzantine taste, here Saint Anna holds her daughter, the Virgin Mary who delivers a blessing and holds a lily stem as a sign of her perpetual virginity. The front embellished with champlevé enamel title plaques above each figure's head identifying them with abbreviated titles, Holy Righteous (Pravednaya) Anna, Mother of the Most Holy Mother of God, and above the Virgin the standard Greek abbreviated ΜΡ ΘΥ – Mother of God. The verso covered in velvet and displaying a large champlevé enamel presentation plaque rendered in Slavonic, "TO HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE EMPRESS MARIA FEODOROVNA, OFFERED HUMBLY BY THE RUSSIAN ATHOS MONASTERY OF THE GREAT MARTYR AND HEALER ST. PANTELEIMON, IN THE MONTH OF MAY OF THE YEAR 1893." 10.6 inches x 8.75 inches (27 x 22.4 cm).
Estimate:  $30,000 - 50,000   € 21,000 - 35,000

Passed

Provenance:
Gatchina Palace and Museum from where sold by the Soviet firm Antikvariat, circa 1928-1934 to a private European collector.

Sotheby’s London, June 10, 2009, lot 629.

It would seem likely that the offered lot was a gift to the Empress on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her coronation which took place on May 27, 1883. In May 1893, the Empress Maria Feodorovna was in Livadia with her husband and children; it is likely that the offered lot wasgiven at that time, presented to the Empress perhaps by the Prior of the Novo-Afonsky Skete, which was a branch of the Athonite Monastery of St Panteleimon. The Skete of Saint Anna located on Athos contains relics of Saint Anna as well as a Wonder-working icon of Saint Anna holding the young Virgin which the offered lot is based on; as such, icons depicting this subject were often sent to dignitaries from the Monastery. Additionally, Saint Anna and the prototype for this icon are related to the virtue of Motherhood which the Empress surely embraced being herself the mother of 11 children.