The icon is, along with the mosaic, the main pictorial manifestation of Byzantine art, heir to Roman and Paleo-Christian art from the 6th century onwards. Icons are portraits of biblical figures, most of them painted on plaster panels, in tempera on a gold background symbolising the heavens, or covered with silver. It is orthodox Christian sacred art that survives to this day.

This icon, brought from Bucharest by Yasmin Paricio Burtin and James Burke, is an oil and metal leaf copy on wood of an ancient Byzantine icon.