Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Icon with the Virgin Galaktotrophousa
Not on view
The Virgin Galaktotrophousa (She Who Nourishes with Milk) shows the Christ Child suckling at his mother’s breast. The first references to the Nursing Virgin and the significance of her milk appear in the writings of early Egyptian church fathers—Clement of Alexandria (died 215), Athanasius of Alexandria (died 373), and Cyril of Alexandria (died 444). Sixth- to seventh-century representations of the Nursing Virgin are known at a number of sites in Egypt, suggesting that the image may have originated there. By the fifteenth century, examples of the type were known in Ethiopia.
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