Our icon closely follows the iconography of the Kazanskaya. The Virgin gazes at the onlooker with her head inclined to her left, towards the Christ-child. Christ is standing before the Virgin. The Virgin of Kazan or Kazanskaya is a variant of the celebrated Byzantine Hodegetria. The oldest Russian variation of the Hodegetria is the Virgin of Vladimir, and over the centuries various versions of this icon arose, often linked to geographical locations in Russia such as the Tikhvinskaya, Smolenskaya, etc. The intimate close-up of the head and arms makes the icon especially direct. The eyes of the Virgin are wide open in sorrowful contemplation and she is not looking at Christ but addresses her gaze to the person praying in front of the image.

In Russia, the Kazanskaya, the Tikhvinskaya, and the Vladimirskaya derive from the Umilenie type. The Kazanskaya it was widely venerated in the 16th and 17th centuries especially as an image for personal prayer in home chapels or monastic cells. Such icons were normally decorated with oklads or revetments. The small pinholes on our icon indicate it once had such a covering which has now been lost.

In the late 16th century, according to church tradition, a vision of the Virgin in the form depicted here appeared to a young girl in the city of Kazan. From this time on the Kazanskaya becomes the most widely venerated image of the Mother of God in Russia, however the original miraculous icon was lost in 1904. It became extremely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and many hundreds, if not thousands, of copies were made of which this image is an example. However, our icon predates the widespread popularity of this type – making it a rare early example and its similarities can be seen with icons that have contemporaneous dating.