OTTOMAN TURKEY, PERIOD OF SULTAN 'ABDULHAMID II (R.1876-1909)

The present icon depicts the monastery of the Mother of God at the Spring, not far from the Golden Gate in modern Istanbul. To either side of the Theotokos are the Greek words Ζωοδόχος and Πηγή, meaning ‘Life-giving Spring’. The name derives from a miraculous spring nearby, famed for its healing powers and an important centre of Christian pilgrimage from at least the late 5th or early 6th century, when a shrine was first constructed on the site. The compelling iconography shows the Mother of God seated atop a fountain which resembles a font, its waters falling on either side to a cruciform basin below. She is flanked by four magnificently-attired angels, their scrolls read χαῖρε, ‘hail’, and the abbreviated forms ‘Μ-T’ ‘Θ-Υ’, or ΜΗΤΗΡ ΘΕΟΥ – ‘Mother of God’.

In the foreground, holy water is poured from flasks over the eyes of two supplicants. The scene recalls an early miracle story connected with spring, in which the future Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian (d. 474) happens upon the holy water and at the divine instruction of the Mother of God uses it to cure a man of blindness. The icon is full of charming details, including the city walls of Istanbul in the background, the liturgical costumes worn by some of the onlookers and the fish swimming in the water of the sacred spring. In Turkish, the monastery is called Balikli, meaning the place of fish.