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English: RUSSIAN OLD BELIEVERS -- Siia kniga sobranie sloves i deianii [This Book is a Collection of Sayings and Deeds], in Church Slavonic, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER

[Russia, c.1820] 337 x 211mm. 104 leaves, written in black ink in a regular semi-uncial Church Slavonic hand on paper with various watermarks, one dated 1820, initials in red, most pages within a double-rule frame in black ink shaded in yellow, and some within borders filled with scrolling foliate tendrils shaded in green, pink, or red wash, opening letters in black or red in elaborate scrolling and floral penwork, FOUR ORNAMENTAL HEADPIECES with leafy and flowering tendrils shaded in blue, pink and yellow, one of these (f.3) centred with a drawing of St John writing; three title-pages with the text in red within frames of scrolling foliate and floral tendrils, shaded in pink, yellow, blue and green; SEVENTY LARGE ILLUSTRATIONS, most two-third and full-page, in pen and ink and watercolour, showing scenes from various Old Believer texts. (Light soiling, some leaves repaired in the margins, a few small repairs, a very few leaves with early shallow creases, a very few leaves slightly shorter.) 19th-century printed cloth-covered linen-backed boards (some repairs, cloth covering lost at the spine, front hinge starting, extremities rubbed); modern green morocco-backed case.

A collection of extracts and illustrations of Old Believer eschatological and spiritual works. The fine illustrations depict: St John's Apocalypse, including the ship of the Church attacked by heretics (f.4); the seven-headed beast attacks the Mother and Child (f.6); the seven-headed beast spews a flood to drown the Mother (f.9); the son of Adam holds on his shoulders the globe with the battle between good and evil (f.12); 'A word on various deeds of Jesus Christ' (f.14); 'A word about charity and its uses' (f.28); 'Parable from the Mirror of the Soul' (f.41v); the Spiritual father sees the Whore of Babylon (f.42); the Holy Table (ff.44 and 46); 'The tale of the rich and the mean' (f.47v); Birds of Paradise (ff.63-64); St Michael of the Apocalypse (f.66); 'The Parable of the Apparition of the Mother of God to St Maksim the Greek' (f.69v); 'From the life of Tsar Ivan Vasil'evich Groznyi' (f.80); scenes from the life of Ivan IV; and various allegorical representations of death, devils, angels and Saints.