The present plaque was clearly originally part of a larger whole, and very probably adorned one of the arms of the reverse of a substantial processional cross. Comparison with the example formerly in the collection of Count Ovaroff, and now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (Rupin and Antonova, locs. cit.) suggests that it would have occupied the zone between one of the terminals, which were decorated with the symbols of the four evangelists, and the central plaque showing Christ.