# The Dormition of the Mother of God [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [UNKNOWN ICON PAINTER, Cretan]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Tempera on wood with gold leaf, 37 x 29 cm ## Commentary The iconographic scheme of the Dormition was formed in Byzantium in the course of the ninth and tenth centuries. The present icon shows Christ in glory, escorted by candle-bearing angels, within a mandorla surmounted by a seraph with flaming wings. Bearing in his arms the soul of his mother in the form of a newborn infant in swaddling clothes, Christ prepares to take her with him into the glory of heaven. Around the recumbent Virgin on her deathbed below are gathered the apostles. Two small angels fly down from above and join in the general lamentation; their faces, bathed in tears, are buried in their hands, covered in turn by their mantles as a mark of veneration. ## Related artworks - [Christ in the Tomb]() - [Christ with the Mother of God and St Catherine]() - [Royal Door]() - [St Menas of Egypt on Horseback]() - [The Annunciation]() - [The Lamentation of Christ]() - [The Madonna della Salute]() - [The Nativity]() - [Transfiguration of Christ \(detail\)]() - [Transfiguration of Christ]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()