In the contemporary, silver-embossed facing of the icon, a pithos [a two-handled, cone-shaped clay storage vessel] is depicted as a reminder of the day when all the empty olive oil jars in the Monastery were miraculously filled after the Prior had prayed in front of the icon: The Virgin Mary the Prioress provided for her monks, simply and practically. The pithos which overflowed with oil has been preserved as an object of veneration until today, and indicates that the lower area of the wing with the cells of the monks was originally an olive oil production and storage area, with characteristic two-handled clay amphorae held upright by being partially embedded in sand.
