Icon of the Mother of God and Infant Christ (Virgin Eleousa) (c. 1425–50): Art, History and Details

Icon of the Mother of God and Infant Christ (Virgin Eleousa) (c. 1425–50) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Angelos Akotantos (Cretan, died 1450).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This large icon of a tender embrace between the Virgin Mary and Christ likely hung on a Greek Orthodox church’s iconostasis, a screen separating the congregation from the altar-containing sanctuary, which only clergy could enter. A skilled painter of faces and draperies, Angelos Akotantos was among Crete’s most sought-after artists. Based in Byzantium’s artistic center in his hometown of Candia, he painted for imperial clients and beyond. Despite theological differences, Cretan icons of Mary were popular in Ethiopia. In the early 1500s, Emperor Lebna Dengel sent monks Zekre and Pawli to acquire Cretan icons for him. Twenty-nine Cretan icons are still venerated (honored) in Ethiopian churches.

Object facts

• Title: Icon of the Mother of God and Infant Christ (Virgin Eleousa)
• Date: c. 1425–50
• Creator attribution: Angelos Akotantos (Cretan, died 1450)
• Culture: Republic of Venice, Kingdom of Candia, Candia (Heraklion, Crete, Greece) or Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: tempera and gold on wood
• Dimensions: Unframed: 96 x 70 cm (37 13/16 x 27 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2010.154

A detail from the museum

This is the only known work by Angelos Akotantos in the United States.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Auction Catalogue of Antonio de Crescenzo and Co., Via Virginio Orsini, Rome, Sale March 15, 1989.
• Baltoyanni, Chrysanthi. Icons: Mother of God. Athens: Adam Editions, 1994.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, "Cleveland Museum of Art Announces Newest Acquisitions," September 7, 2010, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.