Brothers Cosmas and Damian were Roman, or, according to other sources, Arabian or Asian healers in the 3rd century AD. They healed people, preached Christianity, led a pious life, but were killed by the pagans: they were beheaded by order of a Roman military leader. The images of these saints first appeared in the first millennium. In Thessaloniki, Greece, there is a mosaic in the temple of Saint George, which was discovered in the 5th century AD.

The icon was decorated with a leaf-gold cover. It covered the icon frame, but also the background of the icon in the ark, a special recess for the main image. At the time, not only gold, but also thin sheets of silver, brass or cupronickel were used to create icon covers. Using special relief blocks, drawings were manually embossed on them. They could include hagiographic motifs, background patterns or ornaments. This technique was called basma stamping, so the icon covers are often called basma stamped icon frames. The basma stamping technique was used to decorate icon frames, but also church books, and even entire iconostases of Russian churches.

The icon was kept in various churches. In the late 1980s, the icon found its way into the collection of a Saint-Petersburg philanthropist Viktor Samsonov. In 1996, it was bought by the Generation Fund of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District for an art gallery. Fifteen years later, the icon ‘Saints Cosmas and Damian’ was transferred to the museum collection.