The frame with 12 border scenes “Tale of the Holy Mandylion” was painted in 1694 upon commission of the boyar Lev Kirillovich Naryshkin, the brother of Peter the Great’s mother, Tsarina Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina. The boyar associated his salvation during the Streltsy Uprising with the miracle of the icon of the Holy Mandylion. That is why in his village of Fili near Moscow he erected a church where the lower altar was dedicated to the Intercession of the Mother of God, and the upper one to the Holy Mandylion.

On the frame, the leading icon painter of the Armory Cyril Ulanov presented an illustrated “Tale of the Holy Mandylion”. Like other 17th-century artists, Cyril Ulanov used some elements of composition from Western European engraved editions. The “Tale…” reported in detail about the various places where the Holy Vernicle, referred to in the Greek version as “Mandylion”, resided. Its emergence is associated with an Edessa (Syrian) ruler named Abgarus, who fell ill and, hoping to be healed, sent the artist Ananias to paint a portrait of Christ.

Ananias failed to capture the features of the Savior, but he asked Him to help the suffering sovereign. Then Christ wiped his countenance with a piece of cloth, which retained the “acheiropoietos” (not-made-by-hand) image of Jesus that Ananias brought to Abgarus. Upon worshiping the shrine, the ruler was healed of his illness. The Holy Mandylion was put up on the gate of Edessa and was later laid over with bricks to save it from the pagans.

During an attack on the city by the Persians, Our Lady appeared to the bishop of Edessa, Eulalius, and commanded him to find and save the hidden Holy Vernicle. In the 10th century, the Byzantine emperor Romanos Lekapenos acquired this valuable relic, transported it with great honors to Constantinople and placed it in the Pharos Chapel.

Icons of the Holy Mandylion are known as early as in the pre-Mongol art of Ancient Rus, for example in the 12th-century Veliky Novgorod. The Romanov family revered the Holy Mandylion in a precious frame, according to legend, brought to Russia by the future Grand Princess of Moscow, the Greek Tsarina Sophia Paleologos.

In Western European art, a different iconographic tradition originated, associated with the so-called Veil of Veronica. It is based on the legend of a woman named Veronica, who gave Christ her kerchief to wipe his brow during His ascent to Golgotha.