A unique handmade icon with enamel (smalt) made by the brotherhood in the Holy Monastery of Saint Elisavet.
Dimensions: 3.5 x 4 cm.
The miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary of Jerusalem was hagiographed in 1870 AD in a miraculous way. It has traveled to many places in Greece for worship, performing countless miracles, while a faithful copy of it, is in the city of Genesis, Xanthi, Greece. Μore about Virgin Mary of Jerusalem.
The history of enamel (smalt) is literally dawning many centuries back, while the oldest samples are found in the civilization of Mycenae. The art of the smalt reached its zenith during the Byzantine times (8th – 12th centuries), when it was applied in ecclesiastical, as well as in luxurious items. Through the ages, smalt was considered an expensive and valuable piece of art, which was based on the use of grated glass – mass, colored with various metallic oxides. This mass is placed on a metallic surface and is baked in a special oven in temperature of 600 to 900 C. When the glass mass gets cold, it becomes solid, creating one merged mass with the metal. In that way, smalt can offer us pieces with bright, shining and vivid colors.
