As a result of complex multispectral macro photography, the extinct portrait of the Tsar was visualized on the top, leather-covered cover of the Apostle. A double-headed eagle surrounded by ornamental borders is imprinted on it in gold.
The medallion on the chest of the royal coat of arms contains the outline of a man's head in a crown. Above and below the eagle there is an inscription made in ligature: "Ivan, by God's mercy, the Tsar Tsar and Grand Duke of All Russia." For researchers, this became the basis for attributing the image as a portrait of Ivan the Terrible on one of the tray copies made by Ivan Fedorov for the Tsar, or part of the books taken by Fedorov to Lithuania and intended for offerings.
Back in the middle of the XIX century. K. Ya. Tromonin was able to redraw and publish the embossing of the top cover of the Apostle in a general schematic form. But over time, despite the fact that the skin does not contain damage, the image faded more and more. Scientists concluded that this was due to the fact that it was stamped from a metal engraving. Presumably, the engraver was a silversmith or goldsmith from the Armory. She, like Ivan Fedorov's printing house, was located on the territory of the Kremlin.
Metal engraving is the most suitable engraving technique for capturing the subtle nuances of a portrait, but it does not penetrate as deeply into the skin as with a stamp or knurling. And here modern technologies came to the rescue. They made it possible to read that which erases the merciless time.
Researchers agree that the tray copy of the Apostle from 1564 is the only depiction of Ivan the Terrible in his lifetime. It captures the similarity with the reconstruction on the skull of M. M. Gerasimov.
“When compared with it, the portrait obtained with the help of multispectral macro photography reveals an undeniable similarity. One detail on it that is not taken into account by M. M. Gerasimov. The drawing of the left eye differs markedly from the drawing of the right one: it seems that the left eye has a different shape and is somewhat covered. This detail, of course, could be attributed to the safety of the embossing and imperfect visualization. However, after opening the tomb, it was found that the body of the king had significant asymmetry, and, in particular, his left eye had some kind of defect and was larger than the right …"
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This is also supported by the fact that the researcher D. A. Rovinsky did not consider any of the lifetime portraits of the tsar engraved abroad to be reliable. He wrote about this in the book "Reliable portraits of Moscow sovereigns", published in 1882. He recognized only two portraits as original - a woodcut by Hans Weigel the Elder printed in 1563 in Nuremberg and an engraving from the book of P. Oderborn "The Life of the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich", published in Viteberg in 1585. But the engravers never saw the tsar live and made their own work with hearsay.
At the end, we will cite again the work "Lifetime portrait of Ivan the Terrible: visualization of the extinct monument by natural scientific methods": "Thus, we can confidently consider the portrait embossed on a tray copy of the first printed Apostle in 1564 as the only lifetime image of the king."