Byzantine, 10th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
After H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), fig. 101

The Metropolitan Museum icon presents the scene differently from the plaque in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. The Virgin is lying on a bier in the opposite direction. The apostle Paul is touching her feet, while Peter, who originally swung a censer (now lost), is behind the Virgin’s head. Here, Christ is not depicted frontally, but is turned toward the Virgin. He is holding her soul up in the direction of two descending angels. The bier is placed under an elaborately carved baldachin decorated with acanthus leaves.