It is not known for certain where the image of the Mother of God in the Radishchev Art Museum came from. However, there is an assumption that the icon used to hang in one of the Saratov Old Believer house churches — the so-called prayer rooms. Researchers note that the inhabitants of the Saratov governorate were especially committed to the “ancient faith.”

Ancient Orthodoxy (or Old Believers) originated in the region from the time of the early settlements and increased in the 18th century. For two centuries, isolated monastic communities and settlements of zealots of ancient piety were founded on the Saratov lands, which became centers of paramount importance in Russia.

There were numerous private prayer houses in Volsk, Khvalynsk, Atkarsk and other cities of the Saratov governorate, including the capital of the region itself. The Old Believers were engaged in collecting ancient monuments. The monasteries and home churches accumulated collections of icons of the old style as well as ancient religious manuscripts.

The inscription on the image proves the icon used to belong to the Old Believers.

The icon painters and restorers Dikarev and Chirikov painted in the famous Mstera religious and miniature genre. Their workshop appeared in Moscow in the last third of the 19th century and had great connections in the Old Believer world. However, despite the inscriptions, researchers believe that the icon was painted much later — in the 16th century — by an artisan of the Rostov-Suzdal school.

The Rostov-Suzdal school was a significant center, a kind of academy for painters of North-Eastern Russia. Rostov icons were distinguished by the brightness, pure light effects, and the expressiveness of a strict design. They were characterized by a special harmony of a rhythmically built composition and soft warm shades of color.

The iconography of Theotokos of the Unburnt Bush was formed in the 16th century. Its origins are based on the Old Testament Book of Exodus, which describes the prophet Moses seeing a thorny bush that was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames. In the New Testament tradition, this bush on fire is viewed as a prototype of the Mother of God, through which the Savior came into the world.

The Mother of God wears a dark brown maphorium — a loose cloak. With her left hand, she holds the Baby Jesus, and with her right hand, she presses her symbols to her chest: a reliquary with the image of Christ the King of Glory and the “Uncut Mount”.