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Travel icon depicting the Virgin of Kazan, 19th century

Bronze casting with polychrome enamels

Height × width: 14.5 × 12.5 cm Weight: 353 g.

housed within an elegant frame composed of clipei, the upper section of which contains the representation of the Deesis, flanked by the hierarchies of the Archangels and the hieratic figures of Selected Saints. The Madonna of Kazan became a symbol of protection, particularly during periods of war and natural disasters. Copy icons were rapidly disseminated throughout Russia, including in private homes and among the Old Believers, as instruments of domestic devotion. The original icon was stolen and destroyed several times: in 1904 it was taken during the revolution; other copies were destroyed during wars and periods of upheaval, yet the cult continued through surviving replicas. During the twentieth century, the Madonna of Kazan remained one of the most venerated religious symbols, both within the Russian Orthodox Church and among the Russian diaspora. This icon belongs to the group of Russian Old Believers’ icons, produced in series from the seventeenth century onward and characterized by a rigorous adherence to the canons of the Byzantine tradition. These objects, often cast in bronze and sometimes enriched with coloured enamels, were generally small in size and intended for private devotion. Their portability made them easy to carry and, when necessary, to conceal, thus responding to the religious needs of a community that, following the schism known as the *Raskol*, endured periods of persecution by the official Russian Orthodox Church.