The Apocalypse iconographic sources in Russian murals of the 17th century

The fact of the Dutch Bibles engravings by Borcht and Piscator (Visscher) use in Russian art in the 17th century well studied for a long time. But these ouvrages practically didn`t become the subject of Russian scientists’ research. The Borcht and Piscator Bibles have been reprinted many times with additions and corrections. At some point some of Borcht’s prints became part of the Piscator Bible, replacing earlier graphic cycles and one of them is the Apocalypse. It was the first cycle that Russian artists created by Western European engravings. Studies of Russian monumental painting rarely concern the type of Piscator edition that the artists used. The Piscator and Borcht-Piscator Bibles often serve as the prototype of the same monument, but they have significant differences in the number of scenes and the design of individual compositions. The identification of the differences between the apocalyptic engravings in the Borcht and Piscator editions can outline ways to solve the problem of identifying iconographic sources of apocalyptic cycles in Russian murals of the 17th century. Today this problem is not only not solved, but also insufficiently emphasized.