Byzantium—initially to sustain the imperial pretensions of Ivan IV, and later to influence state policy under the Riurikid and Romanov dynasties. Post-revolution Under the Bolsheviks, the icon came into the possession of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Displayed as a work of art, it was first put on display in the gallery in 1930 and kept there for at least the next 11 years. During the Battle of Moscow, Joseph Stalin allegedly had the icon flown around the city as the Germans began to invade. This was first described by Moscow city official Viktor Volokhov in his book . In 1993, it was moved to the Epiphany Cathedral for a Divine Liturgy in the wake of tensions between President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian Duma. Though it was damaged during the excursion, it was soon restored and given to the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. Description The icon is a tempera painting on wood, in size, with the central portion being original and the rest being a later expansion undertaken possibly to accommodate a larger riza. The icon depicts Jesus Christ as a child being held in the arms of his mother, Mary. They embrace cheek to cheek, with the child gazing towards and reaching for Mary. She holds him with one arm and solemnly looks out towards the viewer. The faces and hands are painted with greenish olive sankir, a mix of ochre pigment and soot, and transparent layers of brighter ochre; the child's face is rendered in a lighter shade than the mother's, perhaps to reflect the difference in their age. The child's clothes are painted with dark ochre and gold. The original painting bore the inscription ΜΡ ΘΥ, an abbreviation for 'Mother of God', of which only parts survive. In its nine centuries of existence, the icon has been restored and overpainted at least five times to deal with damage and deterioration, including a fifteenth century restoration thought to have been led by Andrei Rublev. It is mainly the faces of Mary and Jesus and the gold ground above her head that are original twelfth-century paint. In the past, the icon has been covered with several elaborately designed oklad and riza (revetments) which caused damage to the frame. The reverse, which is much less well known, contains an image of the Hetoimasia ('prepared throne') and instruments of Christ's Passion that was painted in century (prior to that