Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa

Medieval Art, 1300
Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa, Medieval Art
Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa, zoomed in
11.2 cmPortable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa scale comparison8.6 cm

Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa is a Medieval Mosaic, Wood and Gold Leaf artwork created in 1300. It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The image is in the Public Domain, and tagged Prayer and The Virgin Mary. SourceDownloadSee Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa in the Kaleidoscope

Mosaic was one of the most popular forms of Byzantine art, used to decorate homes and temples, floors, walls and even furniture, but in the 14th century Byzantine artists decided to double-down. By reducing the size of the mosaic tiles, called tesserae, they developed micromosaics like this madonna and child, which is about the size of a baseball card. This micromosaic from the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts the Virgin Eleousa, the Virgin of Compassion, and is one of the few remaining devotional micromosaics left in the world.

metmuseum.org
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