Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
RÚZSA György: 17. századi magyar könyv egy fejezete a Vlagyimiri Istenanya Ikonról
GYÖRGY RÚZSA A CHAPTER FROM A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HUNGARIAN BOOK ON THE ICON OF THE VIRGIN OF VLADIMIR There is a copy of Pál Galánthai Esterases book, published in 1696 1 , in the Archives of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts, giving a detailed description of an icon which depicts the Virgin. In the present study I would like to prove that the book introduces the famous icon of the Virgin of Vladimir that is now in the Moscow Trctjakov Gallery; and in fact the description is one of the earliest. I would also like to show which sources the book had used and how a Hungarian duke saw Russian icon painting. Let's first examine the icon itself. Around 1136 it was brought from Constantinople to Visgorod, a town close to Kiev and then taken to Vladimir in 1155 by Prince Audrey Bogolyubsky. In 1395, under the reign of Ruling Prince Vasily Dmitriyevich the icon was, for a short time, kept in the Uspensky Cathedral of the Moscow Kreml. However, it was soon brought back to Vladimir and left there until 1480 when it was again taken to Moscow, according to a sixteenth century book(No.321) of the Troitsc-Sergicva Monastery: "The icon of the Blessed Virgin was taken from Volodimir to the city of Moscow in 6988(i.c. in 1480)". The icon was restored and repaired several times and then in 1930 it was taken over by the Moscow Tretyakov Gallery 2 . Researchers agree in that the icon is covered with several layers of paint from different periods; the oldest paints were detected on the faces of Mary and Christ. Most of the experts, including V.I.Antonova and VN.Lazarev, dated the these parts back to the early twelfth 3 or the first half of the twelfth 4 century. According to others, however, the icon was made much later; they claim that the sentimental, lyric expression of the faces are unusual in twelfth century Byzantine art that preferred characteristic, strict faces. They also try to give an explanation for the contradiction between stylistic analysis and the written sources in the form of a hypothesis - supported, for example, by K.Onasch 5 - which says lhat the original icon was damaged in the 1185 fire. On the other hand, I.Bentchcv 6 thinks that the icon was destroyed by Batu Khan's Tatars during the attack of Vladimir in 1237. It is therefore possible that the present icon was painted in the first half of the 13th century by a Russian or Byzantine master. Should the icon be the original or a later reproduction, one thing remains sure: the icon of the Virgin of Vladimir had already been in the Uspenski Cathedral of Moscow by 1480, where it was fairly well-known and respected, and thought to be capable of guarding the city. The place where it was kept marked the centre of all Russian lands; this explains why it was taken to Moscow at the end of the 15th century. By that time it had already been decided lhat Moscow was to be the centre of competing Russian principalities. Those days, Uspenski
