The icon belongs to the type of Hodegetria (Guide). The name comes from the ancient Christian temple of Hodegon in Greece, where the first icon of this type was discovered. Icons of this type usually portrayed the Virgin Mary waist-high, holding the Jesus Child in her arms. According to the legend, a version of this icon appeared before the believers on a bank of Tikhvinka river in the Novgorod region back in the 14th century, so it became to be called ‘Our Lady of Tikhvin’. The legs of the Divine Child are bent at the knees, with the right foot being behind the left. Jesus holds a scroll in one hand, and the other hand is raised in a blessing gesture.

The small icons were painted with the same tempera paints as large icons for churches. Tempera was based on powder pigments and egg yolk, which preliminarily ‘matured’ in the heat. After maturation, the yolk became more fluid and less viscous. The painting technique was also different: there were fewer layers of paint, and the figures were simplified. For example, Virgin Mary’s face on the icon “Our Lady of Tikhvin” is painted with three layers of paint: dark ocher, light ocher and white, while 5 or 6 paints are used on ordinary icons.