THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 0. 1961.
A revered treasure that hangs on the wall of a small house in Reading
COULD THE POWER OF THE BLACK
IT
blazes from the wall of a bedroom in Reading, Berkshire with the frozen fire of 1,009 jewels: the mysterious Russian ikon known to those who venerate it as the Black Virgin of Kazan.
There is serenity and beauty in its superb 16th Century painting of the Infant Christ with His Mother. There is reputedly a fortune in the gems encrusting its exquisitely chased cover of precious metals: 668 diamonds, 158 rubies, 32′ emeralds, 'six sapphires and 150 pearls.
All this is for sole, for £75,000.
But not tho mystery. That remains inviolable in the calm ayos of the Virgin of Kazan.
and
It is an old, enduring mystery, Defying time, change scholarly research, legends of strange wonder-working powers eling still abutil the known his- tory of this trensured relle.
Owner
Superstitious nonsense? Or stubborn faith that refuses even In banishment to languish and die?
The wistful tale has one sym- baihlser, anyway, outside the sod community of ageink, nostalgie enigre Russians 10 whom this ikon means so much.
Cathedral
Miss Anna ("Sammy") Mit- chell-Hedges, the owner of the Virgin of Kazan, is sure there is a sister-ikon. And that she
The ikon is one of two knows where.
VIRGIN
TOPPLE
THE
SOVIET?
By PETER BLOXHAM
price. Then, she is sure, the two halves would soon be brought together.
Once, say the old storles, * enthedral was built in Russia at "Both were together once; a cost of £8,000,000 to house in Razemia," she saya.
"The the revered Black Virgin of two halves close together like Kazon. a book. The lost hall is not lost: It is bidden in Poland, "I dare not say more about Its whereabouts, 3 would not want that on my conscience.' detached house in Reading. The
For the sake of seeing her local day
police inspector
halves, says one of them. When bulh halves are brought together men will
be inspired to rise in a re.
volt that will one topple the Soviet..
But no treasure could be much safer anywhere than on the bedroom wall of Anna MiL- chell-Hedges, in a pleasan!
need ikon back in the hands of the hardly have troubled to call Russian Orthodox Church, she when she moved in with her
she would reduce her ikon last December.
says,
Miss Anna Mitchell-Hedges with the ikon and Skull of Doom,
Not for nothing la him amazing woman of 54 with the twinkileg brown eyes the adopted daughter of an ex- plorer who fought with Pan- cha Villa the Mexican revolutionary, and collected eight bullet wounds and three knife scars.
Princess
have shot three men al- ready," she says conversation- ally as the pours out the tea, (They were natives, on the warpath in the jungle).
"I can protect my ikon," But if the Virgin of Kazon glowa no longer from the lofty dimness of a great cathedral,
One day seven years ago Anna Mitchell-Hedges and Bor father agreed to take her ikon to Wilderness House, in the grounds of Hampton Couri Palace near London: the home in exile of the aged Grand Xenia, sister of the inst Czar of Russia.
Duchess
They expected a small, in- formal occasion. Insleɛd, when they arrived, they found awailing them a large sasen- bly of Bucelan nobility, priests and sisters: abant 200 altogether in a small room.
Found
**It was A very moving pccasion," she recoils. "I shall never forget it. Tears streamed down the face of the Grand Duchess at the sight of this link with her far-off days as a little girl In Russia,
"It was pathetic: I could not bear to remain in the room. But it was wonderful to know that I had been able to bring her a little joy."
The Black Virgin of Kazan, sayı the first of the many traditional stories about 1. was laund miraculously 1578.
Was this the same Iken' that moved the Grand Duchess to tears almost four centuries la- ter?
Simple to ask: Incredibly difficult to answer, even for experts who have spent years exploring the labyrinthine inoze of historical clues.
Veneration
That first story is the simplest.
A soldler's young daughter in Kazan (on the Volga, hallway dlovek) anw-two visions. In the between Moscow and Sver-
there are regular reminders for snow. In the courtyard of her Anna Mitchell-Hedges of the father's house, lay an ikon of veneration in which many hold the Mother
it still.
Black Virgin of Kazon. A vonerated treasure....... on sale for HK$1,200,000
of God, emilting Weltz may well have seen it in have mellowed with age
In the same Reading bedroom
rays of light as bright as the Hussia, when he went there The total value of its gems stands a small, crdinary looking
after the revolution on behalf with their precious settings box. of a syndicate backed by the must be very great, historical heard a volce, directing late Mr Solly Joel, the She her to tell the monks of a near- African millionaire.
and artistic values. apart."
A Russian princess' calls sun. sometimes, She seeks only to sit alone in the room with the ikon, in the belief that it will help her falling sight.
Request
Flowers for the Ikon Tive From exiled Russian nobles 2100 living in Europe. A Countean travelled specially from Switzerland to see it.
Priest, princess, religious sis- ter or local cripple—all who call are granted their one request: to be left alone for a little time with the Virgin.
by church what she had seen.
And 50, asys tradition, the precios ikon was found: and became the centre of venera- ilon of the Rusalan Church. It was supposed anre blind- дем: later, 14 was credited with the retreat of Napoleon from the rates of Moscow.
South
Confusing
His verdlet was that this is a precious copy of the original miraculous kon, and that. It 'was carried by Prince Foz- karakt during his maréh' on Moscow with hla Nationalist Army in 1613 to drive out the Poles.
Skull
Doom
Mr Weltz spent £1,000,000 buying antiques released by the Bolsheviks; among them many of the Russian Crown Jewels A copy, he added, that had A box containing a grinning and about 250 Ikuna.
been credited with miraculous crystal skull. The Skull of powers in are impossibly con- when, in 1737, it was supposed "ikons
Is own right; as Doom. fusing." he says new, "Russia to have arrested, dames that was in such turmolt at that time threatened that it was almost impossible to and convent. The say which arca any of them
came from..
Impossible
this the same one? experts wish they knew.
"The trouble was that every Kusalan prasapt better-clas had some kind of kkon; and rich familles had quite elabor- ate onex.".
a Moscow church
Gaps
If you laugh cynically at it, the story goes, you will die. Several have already, ・[][][][] whispered; others have de- veloped serious illnesses.' Üno well-known woman collapsed when she stared at It. Anna Mitchell-Hedges does
Dr. Nicolal Andreyev, lecturer not laugh, as she tells how she
in Slavonie Studies, et Cam- and her father found the skull,
at the foot of a Maya temple in Central America.
The trouble, they say, is com- Four years ago an archbishop mon to many anolber Russian and a bishop of the Russian treasure: a gap in its history Orthodox Church travelled to during the unsettled years after see the ikon. Then a full re- the Revolution. Precious objects port on it was prepared for the released by the Bolsheviks pass- Church's international headed through many hands within
Five years ago, detalled notes bridge Univeralty and a world
authority on Russian ikon paint quarters in America.
a short time. It has become about the kon's history were Ings, finds that the recent gaps It is said to be at least 3,000 By now Miss Mitchell-Hedges impossible lo say
which, or compiled by Mr Cyril G. E. in this ikon's history make years old: to have taken genéra». has a sheaf of letters from the where they come from original Bunt, author of a book on Bus imposable to say what it is.
tions of men 150 years to rub President of the Synod of ly.
sian art and 40 years on the
It could be the original, with down with sand from a block of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox
stoff of London's Victoria and a lot of missing links. It could pure rock crystal almost as hard Church Outside of Russia.
Miss Mitchell-Hedges' Bon is Albert Museum,
be a contemporary copy. Artis as diamond. "They would buy it if they supposed once to have belonged
Legend anys the skull was "Experts will
ho fically, he says, it is lovely: agree," to Goering. One of its former could," she says. "A Canadian owners once exhibited it among wrote, "that it is the work of historically, nothing can
by a Maya high priest be used oil magnate and several other the booths
proved unless mure is known to wil death: that if is the buyers, some representing bla Blackpool's "Golden Mile".
and aideshows of a great ikon-painter of the 10th about how it entered this coun- personification of evil,
Century the pigments and organisations, are also inter-
When you look at the Skull the wood of the panel are perry and from where. ested."
of Doom from just off-ceritre, It Veteran Hatton Garden dia- fectly preserved, as exhaustivo The ikon holds its mystery in appears to have staring blue mond merchant Mr Norman X-ray tests- have proved, and tact. And in curious companý. eyes.
Mobilgas
SPECIAL
THE GASOLINE DEVELOPED FOR GREATER MILEAGE-GREATER POWER
Mobiloil Special
Mobiloll
ADDS YEARS TO
STANDARD VACUUM OIL COMPANY
ENGINE LIFE
But the sockets are empty, 1
is easy not to laugh.
If you like that sort of thing.
the skull is for sale too..
Expedition
Miss Anna has a fair reason for wanting to clear out some of the odds and ends about the place.
She is planning an expedi- tlan to find the £150 milllkom worth of "pirato treasure that ́afte.is sure was buried By. Bir Henry Morgan, the 17th Cen- tury British buccaneer,
She oven belloves she knows where it is. Before' hør father died, she says, they unoarthed treasures tha! Included gr battles and a jawolled sword" hilt.
All she still har bt, this trage sure is two rubles, made -"Inte eur - rings whón "her-father Rava thom to her 18 years ago. The rest has buen, soli Shance the expedition.....
She is negotiating' "an agrees. ment with a Lalin-American "Government, and fùming nữ the delay
But all this will be another