Темата „Св. Богородица живоносен източник“ в иконописта на самоковските зографи
The Virgin Life-Giving Spring in the works by icon-painters from Samokov

Summary/Abstract: The reason to address this topic is the surfacing of an unknown to me icon of the Virgin Life-Giving Spring, painted most probably by Dimiter Christov Zograph and dating back to 1849. The article examines all the icons on the theme by the most prominent icon-painters from the Samokov Art School: Christo Dimitrov, the founder of the school with a single icon dating to 1808; his elder son, Dimiter Christov Zograph with one such icon at the Church of St Petka, Pazardjik and another one of 1849, unknown until recently and donated to the National Gallery of Fine Arts; Zachary Zograph with four such icons painted in four successive years: at the Monastery of St Petka of Muldava (1836); at Plovdiv-based Church of St Petka the Elder (1837); at the Monastery of Quiricus and Julitta, the village of Gorni Voden (1938); at the Church of the Holy Mother of God of the Annunciation in Asenovgrad with a holy spring (1939). The theme of these icons is related to the cult of the Virgin Life-Giving Spring with a wonderworking icon known by the same epithet and a monastery in Istanbul built around a holy spring and associated with a number of the Virgin’s miracles. The feast of the Life-Giving Spring is celebrated on Fridays of the Bright Week, the week after Easter, which comes to explain the occurrence of these icons in the churches dedicated to St Petka: that by Dimiter Zograph in the church in Pazardjik, the ones by Christo Dimitrov and Zachary Zograph at Plovdiv-based Church of St Petka the Elder; that by Zachary Zograph at the Monastery of St Petka of Muldava. The cult of the Virgin and of the holy water explains the occurrence of the icon by Zachary Zograph at the Church of the Holy Mother of God of the Annunciation in Asenovgrad with its holy spring.

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