Our Lady of the Czestochowa Round Religious Medal Color

The Black Madonna of Czstochowa (Polish: Czarna Madonna or Matka Boska Czstochowska, Ukrainian: , Latin: Imago thaumaturga Beatae Virginis Mariae Immaculatae Conceptae, in Claro Monte ), also known as Our Lady of Czstochowa, is a revered icon of the Virgin Mary housed at the Jasna Gra Monastery in Czstochowa, Poland. The four-foot-high painting displays a traditional composition well known in the icons of Eastern Christians. The Virgin Mary is shown as the "Hodegetria" ("One Who Shows the Way"). In it the Virgin directs attention away from herself, gesturing with her right hand toward Jesus as the source of salvation. In turn, the child extends his right hand toward the viewer in blessing while holding a book of gospels in his left hand. The icon shows the Madonna in fleur-de-lys robes. The origins of the icon and the date of its composition are still hotly contested among scholars. The difficulty in dating the icon stems from the fact that the original image was painted over, after being badly damaged by Hussite raiders in 1430. The wooden boards that backed the painting were broken and the canvas slashed. Medieval restorers unfamiliar with the encaustic method found that the paints they applied to the damaged areas "simply sloughed off the image" according to the medieval chronicler Risinius, and their solution was to erase the original image and to repaint it on the original panel. The original features of an Orthodox icon were softened; the nose was made more aquiline