Virgin from a Deesis

Origin: Russia
Age: 1st Half of the XIXth Century
Composition: Painting in the style of the XVII – XVIIIth century, Tsekanka in levkas, tempera on wood
Measures Cms: 43,3 X 35,0 X 2,5

Deesis means Prayer and both the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist are represented praying Christ. Traditionally they are the first witnesses of Christ’s divinity. The Virgin and Saint John are the intercessors between Christ and the humanity. The prayer is infallible if it is identified by Christ’s prayer. In the sacraments, this privileged identification as gift of God started to the peculiar Church is what constitutes the pledge, the novelty of what will happen at the end of the times for all the believers. And this is already fulfilled now in the God’s Mother, in the kingdom of her Son.