Simeon Ushakov, the most prominent of the painters in the Kremlin workshops. In 1668, Ushakov painted for the church this icon, which embodies important aspects of the official religious and ideological program of the Muscovite state in the middle of the seventeenth century. The center of the icon reproduces the famous "Icon of the Vladimir Mother of God", a twelfth-century Byzantine painting wich came to be considered the most important of the miracle-working icons associated with Moscow. At the bottom can be seen very realistically rendered walls of the Moscow Kremlin, with the Frolov (Savior) gate that leads into Red Square just left of center. The trunk of the tree grows out of the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin. The planting and watering of the tree are being done by the founders of the Muscovite state, Metropolitan Peter and Grand Prince Ivan I. The Romanovs are also represented though. Taking part in the veneration of the Vladimir icon are the reigning Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, and his wife, Mariia Miloslavskaia, and two sons, Ivan and Fedor. The scroll she holds contains verses from the service hymns to the Virgin, as do the scrolls held by the other figures in the composition. The left side of the tree has medallions with images of Muscovite Metropolitans and Tsars. The right side of the composition is a series of monastic saints and iurodivye (Fools in Christ).
