The Annunciation, Moscow or Yaroslavl, late 17th century

depicted against a stylised architectural background, the Archangel Gabriel on the far left holding the orb inscribed with Christ's initials, thence advancing towards the Mother of God holding a messenger's staff in his left hand and making a gesture of blessing  with his right hand, the Mother of God, seated on a crimson cushion, holding a scarlet ball of thread wearing a deep purple-brown mantle, alluding to her divine destiny, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove in a ray of light descends upon her from a celestial segment of the sky where God the Father can be seen blessing the Angel Gabriel in preparation for his task

The panel consists of two pieces of wood that have been glued together. There is a vertical crack running from the top to the bottom in the middle of the panel. The icon has some retouching, particularly to the green border. There is a patch of later over-painting on the upper border on the right. The overall condition of the icon is good. We would advise prospective buyers to view.
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The Mother of God's worthiness and sublime nature are represented by the fact that she is not standing on the ground but is seated on a throne with her feet raised on a footstool. The skein of thread that Mary can be seen holding alludes to a passage from the apocryphal proto-gospel of Jacob. This states that Mary's parents took her to the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three years old. Here she remained until she was twelve, spinning purple and scarlet thread for the temple's new curtain, which had to be made by eight maidens from the house of David. ('And the lot of the true purple and the scarlet fell unto Mary, and she took them and went unto her house.'Chapter 10, Protevangelion Jacobi).  Mary was also spinning when the Archangel appeared to her. Many years later, during Christ's Crucifixion when the earth shook and everything went dark, the Temple curtain, for which Mary had spun thread, was rent in two. In this way the icon of the Annunciation already contains an allusion to the Crucifixion of Christ. The incarnation of Christ is the beginning of God's plan for mankind's salvation. Gabriel's message to Mary is the first sign of the incarnation. The theological significance of this event, therefore, cannot be underestimated and this subject has a set place in the row of feast-day icons on an iconostasis.

The naturalistic way that the faces of the Virgin and the Archangel Gabriel have been portrayed on this icon of the Annunciation is typical of the work of those icon painters who were active in the Armoury Workshop of the Moscow Kremlin in the second half of the 17th century. The most famous painter of that period, Simon Ushakov, had initiated a revolution in Russian icon painting and his new style of painting was hugely influential. Additional details in the painting and the elaborate way the architectural background is depicted on the icon point to the influence of the Yaroslavl icon painting school. In the late 17^th century icon painting from this flourishing town of merchants was particularly distinctive for its characteristically vital and joyful painting style. Impressive architecture, large scale fresco ensembles and colourful, monumental icons painted in minute detail are all features of this period. The painters from Yaroslavl combined western influences with traditional icon painting in a way that was highly esteemed and valued.