Editing Icon (section)

===Luke's portrait of Mary===
It is in a context attributed to the 5th century that the first mention of an image of Mary painted from life appears, though earlier paintings on [[Catacombs of Rome|catacomb walls]] bear resemblance to modern icons of Mary. [[Theodorus Lector]], in his 6th-century ''History of the Church'' 1:1<ref>Excerpted by Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos; this passage is by some considered a later interpolation.</ref> stated that [[Licinia Eudoxia|Eudokia]] (wife of emperor [[Theodosius II]], {{abbr|d.|died}} 460) sent an image of the "[[Theotokos|Mother of God]]" named [[Hodegetria|Icon of the Hodegetria]] from Jerusalem to [[Pulcheria]], daughter of [[Arcadius]], the former emperor and father of Theodosius II. The image was specified to have been "painted by [[Luke the Evangelist#As an artist|the Apostle Luke]]."

[[Margherita Guarducci]] relates a tradition that the original icon of Mary attributed to Luke, sent by Eudokia to Pulcheria from Palestine, was a large circular icon only of her head. When the icon arrived in Constantinople it was fitted in as the head into a very large rectangular icon of her holding the Christ child and it is this composite icon that became the one historically known as the Hodegetria. She further states another tradition that when the last Latin Emperor of Constantinople, [[Baldwin II of Constantinople|Baldwin II]], fled Constantinople in 1261 he took this original circular portion of the icon with him.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.avellinomagazine.it/foto%20home%20page/madonna.jpg|title=Photo |website=www.avellinomagazine.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref><ref name="mariadinazareth_it">{{cite web |url=http://www.mariadinazareth.it/www2005/Apparizioni/Montevergine4.jpg |title= Photo |website=www.mariadinazareth.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref>

This remained in the possession of the [[Capetian House of Anjou|Angevin dynasty]] who had it inserted into a much larger image of Mary and the Christ child, which is presently enshrined above the high altar of the Benedictine Abbey church of [[Montevergine]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.avellinomagazine.it/foto%20home%20page/madonna.jpg|title=Photo |website=www.avellinomagazine.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref><ref name="mariadinazareth_it" /> This icon was subjected to repeated repainting over the subsequent centuries, so that it is difficult to determine what the original image of Mary's face would have looked like. Guarducci states that in 1950 an ancient image of Mary<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vultus.stblogs.org/icona%20sta%20maria%20%20nuova.jpg|title=STblogs.org|access-date=2009-05-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180545/http://vultus.stblogs.org/icona%20sta%20maria%20%20nuova.jpg|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}}</ref> at the Church of [[Santa Francesca Romana]] was determined to be a very exact, but reverse mirror image of the original circular icon that was made in the 5th century and brought to Rome, where it has remained until the present.<ref>Margherita Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome, (San Francisco: [[Ignatius Press]], 1991) 93–101.</ref>

[[File:vladimirskaya.jpg|right|thumb|upright|The "[[Theotokos of Vladimir]]" icon (12th century) symbol of [[Russia]]]]

In later tradition the number of icons of Mary attributed to Luke greatly multiplied.<ref>James Hall, ''A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art'', p. 111, 1983, John Murray, London, {{ISBN|0-7195-3971-4}}</ref> The [[Salus Populi Romani]], the [[Theotokos of Vladimir]], the [[Theotokos Iverskaya]] of [[Mount Athos]], the [[Theotokos of Tikhvin]], the [[Theotokos of Smolensk]] and the [[Black Madonna of Częstochowa]] are examples, and another is in the cathedral on [[St Thomas Mount]], which is believed to be one of the seven painted by [[Luke the Evangelist]] and brought to India by [[Thomas the Apostle]].<ref>Father H. Hosten in his book ''Antiquities'' notes the following "The picture at the mount is one of the oldest, and, therefore, one of the most venerable Christian paintings to be had in India."</ref> [[Ethiopia]] has at least seven more.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cormack|first=Robin|title=Painting the Soul; Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds|page=46|year=1997 | publisher=Reaktion Books, London}}</ref> Bissera V. Pentcheva concludes, "The myth [of Luke painting an icon] was invented in order to support the legitimacy of icon veneration during the [[Iconoclastic controversy]]" (8th and 9th centuries, much later than most art historians put it). According to Reformed Baptist pastor John Carpenter, by claiming the existence of a portrait of the Theotokos painted during her lifetime by the evangelist Luke, the [[iconodule]]s "fabricated evidence for the apostolic origins and divine approval of images."<ref name="auto1"/>

In the period before and during the [[Iconoclastic Controversy]], stories attributing the creation of icons to the New Testament period greatly increased, with [[Acheiropoieta#Conventional images believed to be authentic|several apostles and even Mary herself]] believed to have acted as the artist or commissioner of images (also embroidered in the case of Mary).