Selling icons and other religious objects began in the 1920s to combat chronic shortages of foreign currency and to expunge religious imagery from Soviet society. As part of the diplomatic community, the Davies had access to various state storerooms and commission shops through which the government dispersed objects. When the Davies arrived in Moscow, they purchased this seventeenth-century icon of the Kazan Mother of God. The icon had been carefully inventoried and still bears the commission shop’s Mosgostorg (Moscow Trade Organization) label.