The icon is painted in the traditional manner against a gold background, encased in a rich silver-gilt oklad repoussé in high relief with a foliate border. It shows the Mother of God lying on her deathbed, surrounded by the grieving Apostles and hierarchs. In the middle stands Christ holding the Virgin’s soul depicted as a swaddled baby. The upper border bears the calligraphic inscription in Old Slavonic reading: Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God.
The Dormition of the Mother of God, also known as the Assumption in the Western tradition, is one of the most important feasts of the Virgin. The feast and its associated images had their sources in apocryphal stories and homilies, among which a sermon on the death of the Mother of God by Archbishop John of Thessaloniki (610-649) had the greatest influence on the iconography. According to the legend, the twelve apostles were present at the deathbed of the Mother of God, together with four early Christian writers James, Dionysius the Areopagite, Hierotheos and Timotheos of Ephesus.
The feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God is celebrated on August 15th.