Small travel diptych, 19th century

Bronze casting with polychrome enamels.

Height × width: 3 × 6.5 cm Weight: 43.6 g.

Intended for private devotion, this object belongs to the production of Russian Old Believers from the 17th century onward. It has a hinged structure composed of two panels, conceived as a small portable altar.The main panel features a Deesis, with Christ enthroned and flanked by the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist, a central image of intercession and the Final Judgment in the Byzantine tradition. The second panel depicts an Archangel, representative of the heavenly host, accompanied by Saint Nicholas of Myra, one of the most venerated saints in the Russian Orthodox tradition, invoked as a protector and miracle worker. This iconographic combination reflects the composite nature of Old Believers’ devotion, which unites the theological level of the Deesis with the protective, everyday intercession of saints and angels. The cover of the diptych features, on the front, a stylized representation of the Cross of Golgotha, while the reverse is decorated with a punched circular motif, likely of ornamental and symbolic character, attributable to the decorative repertoire of Old Believers’ devotional metalwork. These artifacts, often small in size and mass-produced, were designed to be easily transported or concealed, meeting the needs of a community marked, after the schism known as the Raskol, by periods of persecution and dispersion.