In an icon, what matters most is sometimes not the face but the hand. An icon of St Anna on stone: Righteous Anna supports the young Mary with one hand, and turns the open palm of the other towards her. Mary is in red, with a white lily in her hand.

Who Holy Righteous Anna is

Anna is the mother of the Mother of God and the wife of Joachim. Her name does not appear in the canonical Gospels. The first known text to give it is the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal work of the second century.

According to it, Joachim and Anna had no children for a long time. An angel announced to them the birth of a child, and at the age of three Mary was given to the Temple.

In the church calendar, two feasts in particular are connected with the name of Anna. The Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God by Righteous Anna is on 9 December by the Revised Julian calendar; in communities that keep the Julian calendar, on 22 December (New Style). The Dormition of Righteous Anna is on 25 July by the Revised Julian calendar; in communities that keep the Julian calendar, on 7 August (New Style).

Icon of Righteous Anna with Mary: why the gesture comes first

Anna here does not simply hold the child. One hand supports; the other, with open palm, is turned towards Mary. The image is named after Anna, but it tells us to look at Mary.

A similar gesture is familiar from icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria: there the Mother of God holds the Child and points to Him with her hand. The very name “Hodegetria” means “She who shows the way”. In the icon of Anna the gesture stands a generation earlier.

For stone, a simple requirement follows. The palm must read as clearly as the face: if the gesture is lost in the folds of the clothing, the image loses what matters most.

The lily in Mary’s hand: what it means

The white lily in iconography is a sign of purity. In Western art, from the late Middle Ages on, the Archangel Gabriel holds it in his hand in depictions of the Annunciation.

Here the flower is already in the hand of the child: the same word, spoken in advance. The red garment and the white lily give the icon its strongest contrast, while the golden-ochre ground holds both colours without quarrelling with either.

Icon of St Anna on stone: arch, ornament, names

An icon in an arch with an ornament is an image that has a frame of its own. The curve at the top repeats the outline of a niche or window, and the ornament along the edge gathers the composition into one whole: the two figures, the flower, the inscriptions.

The names are written beside the figures. In an icon an inscription is not a reference note but part of the image: it names those who are depicted.

What to decide before ordering

The gesture. How large the hands will be in relation to the figures, and whether the palm will read from a distance.
The inscriptions. The form of the names, the language, their place beside the figures.
The arch and ornament. The width of the border: the frame should gather the image, not crowd it.
The place. A niche, a pier between windows or an interior: the size and the stone depend on it.

Questions and answers

Is such an image suitable as an icon for a church of St Anna? Yes. It is fitting both in a church of her name and in a chapel or niche. The place suggests the size and the outline of the arch.

Is the lily essential? No. The flower is not painted on such images every time; this is decided at the sketch stage.

Where do we start? With a photograph and the dimensions of the place. Then a sketch and a drawing, approval, fabrication and installation.

If you are planning an image of St Anna for a church or chapel, send a photograph of the place and its dimensions, and we will suggest the outline of the arch and the width of the ornament: +380 66 892 98 18. More about this line of work is on the Icons on stone page.