A panel is a decorative plate made of wood or other materials inserted into a frame. In the interior, such a product is often mounted directly into the leaf of a door, cabinet or wall partition. The panel “Corruptible Human” was created in the early 20th century. On a wooden board, the artist depicted an instructive story about the frailty of earthly life.

There is a young man in a long shirt in the center of the composition. An angel is visible to the left of the young man, in one hand he holds a sword, while with the other hand he points to symbolic objects on the table: an hourglass speaks of the transience of time, a book means the wisdom of life.

The scene is intended as a moralizing illustration to the verse of Metropolitan and famous church figure Stefan Yavorsky:

Set to music, this text was intended for home singing outside the church. Such chants are called psalms. They were popular in the Little Russian (Ukrainian) culture, which significantly influenced the formation of Russian customs in Peter’s time.

From the books of the official church, this spiritual verse passed to the Old Believers. They also sang it but to a different, traditional melody. Over time, it entered various handwritten Old Believer collections. Some of them feature additional information: the authors assumed that the verse was an epitaph to St. Dimitry of Rostov.

It was the Old Believers that got inspired by the verse and created a pictorial scene with a young man, an Angel and a raw-boned death, depicted on the panel from the museum’s collection. It also appeared in hand-drawn lubok (a specific type of graphic art that became widespread in Russia in the mid-17th century) and iconography.

Pictures with edifying stories occupy a significant place in the art of the Old Believers: they preferred images of an instructive nature based on parables, apocrypha, spiritual verses. They were mostly hand-drawn luboks made on paper, less often with oil paints on a blackboard.

Most likely, the panel “Corruptible Human” belonged to someone from the town merchants. There were many secret adherents of the old faith in the merchant environment.