The Holy Mandylion icon represents the first image of the Savior miraculously created by Christ himself, not made by human hands. According to the Christian tradition, King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus, asking him to come to cure him of an illness. Instead, one of the seventy disciples, Thaddeus, is said to have come to Edessa, bearing the words and an image of Jesus, by the virtues of which the king was miraculously healed. To create his likeness, Jesus used a face cloth that miraculously bore the image of His face. This image of Christ preserved on the face cloth was kept and venerated in Edessa and became known as “The Holy Image of Edessa”, the “Holy Mandylion” (from Greek “face cloth”), or “The Image Not Made With Human Hands”. This iconographic type is widely used by Eastern and Western Christian Churches.
The trompe-l'œil painting is imitating a gold revetment cover adorned with precious stones.
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