A rarely depicted subject. It appears in a fresco commissioned in 1610 from Guido Reni in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, but the composition is very different from the present drawing: the fresco occupies a vertical space, and it shows an angel rather than the Virgin attaching the separated hand--L'opera completa di Guido Reni, ed. E. Baccheschi, Milan 1971, no. 62C, pp. 93-94. A similar story about the restoration of Pope Leo I's hand is in the Golden Legend
Through his three works in favour of sacred icons, written under the protection of the Muslim caliph of Damascus, Saint John Damascene (ca. 675-ca. 749) opposed the iconoclasm of the Christian Emperor Leo III (717-741). Leo deceived the caliph into believing that John was a traitor, as a result of which the hand with which John had written his works was cut off. His legend records that he witnessed in a dream the Virgin, in gratitude for his defense of her images, reattaching his hand like a branch being grafted on to a tree. Saint John Damascene is one of the patron saints of pharmacists and icon painters
Left, ointments in jars and bottles; centre, Saint John Damascene and the Virgin; right, a pen and book representing Saint John Damascene's writings on sacred icons
