Russian icon Lady of Iberia in gilded silver clad with enamel halo, stamped makers hallmark and an assayer 84 zolotniks standard mark, dating the okland to 1899-1908; another assayer mark on the halo; overall the icon measures approx. 7" x 5-1/2". The icon of Our Lady of Iberia, dates back to the 4th Century, when a pious widow of the Byzantine town of Nivea gave the miracle-working original icon to the sea to preserve it from iconoclasts, led by the emperors of the Isaurian dynasty. The icon purportedly "floated" to the gates of a monastery to protect itself from the iconoclasts who sought to destroy it. A copy of the icon was brought to Moscow in 1648 to be placed above the Kremlin's Resurrection Gates. A chapel was built for it on the site in 1660. In the Soviet times the chapel was pulled down in the early hours of July 29, 1929. The icon disappeared and has never been recovered.
2,000/2,500
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