Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, Renaissance painting at the Gate of Dawn Chapel, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn is a painting in the chapel above the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is tempera on eight joined oak boards, 200 by 165 cm, and shows Mary without the child, hands crossed on her chest. A gilded silver baroque cover leaves only her inclined face and crossed hands visible, and two crowns sit on her head.
The Carmelites built the chapel above the city gate in 1671 and installed the image there. Since then the shrine has drawn pilgrims from Poland, Lithuania and Belarus and became an important place for Catholics and Orthodox alike.
The depiction wears a silver and gold cover following Orthodox tradition, revealing only the face and hands of the Mother of God. Pilgrims light candles and kneel in prayer, showing the living devotion of believers from several Christian traditions.
The chapel opens daily early in the morning and stays accessible until evening. Visitors can view the painting from inside or look up from the street through the open window.
The image carries two stacked crowns of gilded silver: a Baroque crown for the Queen of Heaven and a Rococo one for the Queen of Poland. Gold crowns made for the 1927 coronation in Vilnius, funded by public donations, disappeared during World War II. The large silver crescent below, a votive of 1849, was never fixed to the painting.
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