Genealogy of the state of Muscovy (Panegyric to Our Lady of Vladimir)
Date: XVII century. 1668
Iconographic school/art center: Kremlin Armory School of icon-painters
Icon-painter: Ushakov, Simon (Pimen) Fedorovich
Origin: From the Holy Trinity Church in Nikitniki, Moscow.
Material: Wood, tempera
Dimensions: height 105 cm, width 62 cm
The first Metropolitan of Moscow Peter and Prince Ivan Danilovich Kalita are depicted against the Assumption Cathedral. They are shown planting and watering a tree which blossoms through the Assumption Cathedral and fills the whole icon surface with its branches. Upon tree branches are medallions portraying Moscow saints; inside the central largest medallion is an image of Our Lady of Vladimir. Behind the Kremlin Wall stand Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his first wife Maria Ilyinichna with their children. Above, in the clouds, the Savior is handing to the hovering angels a wreath and a phelonion for Alexei Mikhailovich: the King of Heaven crowns the King of the Earth. The images of the saints in the medallions are positioned bottom-up, thus breaking the historical sequence. On the left branch, behind the Metropolitan Peter, stand fathers of the Russian Church – metropolitans Alexis, Cyprian, Jonas, Photius and Philip, patriarchs Job and Philareth, tsars Mikhail Fedorovich, Feodor Ioannovich, tsarevich Dimitri. On the right branch, inside the first medallion, is the figure of prince Ivan Danilovich Kalita, the grandfather of Alexander Nevsky dressed in skhimnik clothes. Behind him stand the founders and priors of the monasteries in the vicinity of Moscow – blessed Savva Storozhevsky, Pafnuty Borovsky, Simon the Silent, Andronik and the Moscow holy fools Maxim, Basil and John the Big Cap.
Inv. № 28598. © The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Bibliography:
Иконопись из собрания Третьяковской галереи. М., 2008. С164-166.
General view