The icon is a 12th-century Byzantine panel of the eleousa ('tenderness') type — the Virgin's face turned toward her Son who reaches up to touch her cheek. It was sent from Constantinople to Kiev around 1131, then moved to Vladimir, then in 1395 to Moscow when Grand Prince Vasili I appealed for it during the invasion of the Central Asian conqueror Tamerlane.
On August 26, 1395 — the day the icon was solemnly received in Moscow — Tamerlane, encamped near Yelets and about to march on the capital, reportedly received in a dream a vision of a great Lady descending from the heavens, and ordered his army to turn back. Tamerlane never returned. The Russian Church kept the day as the feast of the Meeting of the Vladimir Icon. The icon was credited with the salvation of Moscow again in 1480 and 1521. After centuries in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, it was moved by the Soviets to the Tretyakov Gallery in 1930; in 1999 it was returned to liturgical service in the small Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi, attached to the Gallery, where it remains.