Images of the Virgin Eleousa, the Virgin of Compassion, developed in the later Byzantine centuries and profoundly influenced the art of the Latin West. Here, the intimate poses of the heads and hands display the warm emotional attachment of the Virgin and Child. The fifteenth-century Latin inscription on the reverse identifies the icon as the one that converted the fourth-century Saint Catherine of Alexandria to Christianity.
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This work is in the public domain.
Source
Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa | Byzantine | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
