The unknown artist painted the icon Venerable Alexis in the late 18th century. In the centre, he depicted Roman full in Christ Alexis, and around him – 12 border scenes with the episodes of his life from birth to death. In iconography, each border scene is an independent image, most often – of rectangular shape, which depicts a separate episode of the central theme. Traditionally the border scenes are used in hagiographical icons depicting not only the image of the Saint, but also the events of his mortal life.
In this icon, the author combined traditional features of iconography in a slightly simplified folk style and Baroque style popular in that time. For example, the master painted pompous frames around the border scenes, cartouches in Baroque style. He even selected the colors in accordance with this style. The artist used active colors: yellow and blue, red and dark blue framed by brown margins. When painting architecture and people, the artist was based on the traditions of Western Europe engravings, which the Russian icon painters were studying in that time. Thus, the artist painted the actual proportions of a human body and modeled tridimensional figures thanks to skillful drawing of light and shade.

In the later version of his life story (created in Greece), Alexis returned home after several years of cloister, but no one recognised him. His father, Euphemianus, ordered to give the shelter and food to this beggar. Alexis lived like that for many years: he received alms from his family and had to bear with rudeness and mockery from his former servants. Before his death, Alexis described his life story in writing. The legend says that I the same day in the Saint Peter church in Rome the congregation heard the voice ordering them to find the Man of God in the house of Euphemianus. When the crowd arrived to the Alexis’s shack, they saw the dead body holding a scroll in his hands — and that was his life story. When his parents found out about Alexis’s wanders, they started crying because for so many years they could not recognize their son. However, the Pope consoled them saying Alexis was the Great Saint.