Travel triptych depicting the Virgin of Consolation, XIX century

Cast bronze with polychrome enamels

Height x width: 9 x 10 cm

The object is a portable triptych with three hinged leaves, cast in bronze, characteristic of the Russian metalworking production of the Old Believers. The central leaf depicts the iconography of the Mother of God of Consolation, a devotion whose origins, according to tradition, are linked to the miraculous rescue from a shipwreck of Arcadius, the son of Theodosius I, attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. On the site where Arcadius was found, on the shore of the Vatopedi Monastery near Mount Athos, Patriarch Nectarius erected a sanctuary and installed the icon of the Otrada, on whose model copies were subsequently painted and sent to Russia. The iconographic program of the side leaves comprises four of the Great Feasts of the liturgical year: the Entry into Jerusalem and the Presentation at the Temple, followed by the Paschal scenes of the Anastasis (the Descent into Hades) and the Ascension.