The Hermitage's Coptic collection, which includes more than five and a half thousand different monuments, is rightfully considered one of the best collections in the world (1). The first Coptic monuments entered the museum in the early 1880s (these were items from the collections of K. von Tischendorf transferred from the Academy of Sciences). It is based on monuments brought from Egypt by the curator of the Department of the Middle Ages and Renaissance Vladimir Georgievich Bok (1850-1899). From the first expedition to the Nile Valley in 1888-1889, he brought more than two thousand fragments of Egyptian fabrics, purchased at his own expense, and gave them to the museum (2). From the second expedition in 1897-1898, he delivered more than one and a half thousand various art products and written monuments, which enriched several current departments of the Hermitage and the Russian National Library named after M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (Saint Petersburg). Intensive replenishment of the museum's collection occurs in the 1920s-1930s - the time when monuments were received from museums (the museum of the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron AL Stieglitz Museum, Samara Regional Research Society Museum, etc.), scientific institutions (Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, etc.), private collections (B. A. Turaeva, N. F. Romanchenko, etc.) and purchases (3).

The Hermitage's Coptic collection has been in existence for the second hundred years (4). During this time, barely a third of the monuments stored in it have been published (5). Naturally, the best, unique and rare items have been published. But surely more than one generation of researchers who will devote their lives to its study, waiting for interesting, promising discoveries. I hope that the monument that I would like to draw attention to in this message can serve as a confirmation of my words.

We will talk about a fragmentary preserved wooden panel (dimensions 21.8 X 6.9 X 1.0 cm) with three brass plates reinforced on one side with figurative and ornamental images made in the Basma technique (see Fig.). It was delivered to the Hermitage by V. G. Bok from Egypt in the spring of 1898. It was entered in the museum inventory under the number 13211. This item was only exhibited twice. The first time was a hundred years ago at the exhibition of monuments brought by V. G. Bok from Egypt arranged in the Raphael Loggias in the Hermitage (6). The second time was in April 1987 at the temporary exhibition "Coptic Art in the Hermitage" (7). The monument was reproduced twice. A black-and-white illustration accompanies my article about

1. Kakovkin A. Ya. The largest world collections of Coptic monuments / / VDI. 1992. N 2. pp. 211-218.

2. Turaev B. A. Coptic fabrics in the Imperial Hermitage / / Khudozhestvennye novosti. St. Petersburg, 1890. Vol. 8. N 1. Col. 1-5.

3. The list of museums, institutions, and individuals from which the Hermitage received Coptic monuments at various times is presented in the currently published collection Coptica Hermitagiana.

4. The history of the collection is covered in some detail in the literature. I will note only some works:

Bystrikova M. G. Koptskaya kollektsiya Ermitazh i ego izuchenie [The Coptic collection of the Hermitage and its study]. VDI. 1972. N 3. pp. 233-238; Kakovkin A. Ya. Koptskaya kollektsiya Ermitazh za sto let // Istoriya Ermitazh i ego kollektsii [History of the Hermitage and its collections], L., 1989, pp. 89-95; Oscharina O. Die Geschichte der koptischen Sammlungen der Ermitage / / Komet. 1997. 6. Ht 2. S. 45-48.

5. The most complete publication of Coptic monuments of the Hermitage is presented in the collection "Coptica Hermitagiana".

6. Kakovkin A. Ya. The first exhibition of Coptic art in Russia / / VV. 1994. 55 (80). pp. 47-52; Kakov-kine A. Ja. La premiere exposition Copte en Russie / / Cahiers de la Bibliotheque Copte 8. Etudes Copies IV. Paris-Louvain, 1995. P. 63-74.

7. The exhibition functioned only for three weeks and did not find a response in the press.

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the Hermitage Coptic collection, published in the Proceedings of the III International Coptological Congress, held in Warsaw in August 1984. (8) A color reproduction of the panel with a brief annotation is included in the first volume of "Treasures of the Hermitage", published in New York in 1994. (9) This monument undoubtedly deserves more attention. The purpose of this report is to review the technical and artistic features of the monument, determine the time and place of its manufacture, and identify the characters represented on it.

So, on the wooden panel, sawn from the sides, and unevenly broken off from the top and bottom, three brass plates are reinforced. Dimensions of the bottom - 14 X 4 cm, top - 10.5 X 4 cm, side - 5 X 1.8 cm. The plates are very thin, dented, in many places have breaks, unevenly torn off at the edges. They are attached to the wooden base with forged nails. On the sides there are the remains of three iron strips covering the joints of brass sheets. As already noted, the images on the plates are made in the basma technique. The essence of this technique was as follows. On the matrix with a relief image of the master superimposed thin metal sheets (preference was given to brass and bronze) and, rolling on the sheet with a roller made of a fairly hard material or by hammering with a hammer with a not very hard, shock-absorbing base, a convex image was obtained on the front surface of the metal plate. Moving the sheets around the matrix and continuing the process of performing images, we obtained several identical, repeating images (like printed fabrics). This technique is characterized by a soft vagueness of images, not always expressive, as if "blurred" relief without detail and clarity.

8. Kakovkin A. L'art copte de 1'Ermitage // Coptic Studies. Acts of the Third Intern. Congress of Coptic Studies. Warsaw, 20-25 August 1984. Varsovie, 1990. P. 181. PI. 2.

9. Idem. The Coptic Collection // Great Art Treasures of the Hermitage Museum, St.-Petersburg. V. I. N.Y., 1994. P. 356-365. N 343.

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Most of the monuments made in this technique known from publications by specialists date back to the III-V centuries. (10) The visual repertoire of such monuments is usually borrowed from ancient mythology. The main characters in them are::

Dionysus, Aphrodite, Orpheus, Pan, the three Graces, Leda with the swan, Isis, centaurs, gorgons, etc. Since the same images are found on bone carvings, most of which are associated by specialists with the workshops of Alexandria (11), both bronze and brass plates are usually attributed to the products of Alexandrian masters. In any case, the opinions of I. Strzhigovsky and O. Wulff on this subject, expressed by them almost a hundred years ago, are not disputed by anyone. It seems to me that the Hermitage monument should be attributed to Alexandria, dating it, if not to the end of the third, then certainly to the beginning of the fourth century.

The noted features of such images are also inherent in the monument of interest to us. Its poor preservation further aggravates them. Nevertheless, the overall impression of the images on the Hermitage plates can be obtained.

The smallest, narrowest, vertical leaf on the right shows a vine growing out of a vessel. On the lower plate, among the ornamental motifs of stylized vines, there are three medallions framed with "beads". Each medallion shows a man's head to the right. Between the medallions are placed two images of a sitting man with his head turned back. He is wearing a long-skirted robe, a Phrygian cap on his head, and with his hands he holds a rectangular object on his lap, on which several vertical stripes can be seen. Small animals and birds are represented around this image. On the top plate we see five characters. To the slender naked man standing on the right (part of this figure on the right has not been preserved) are directed: a big-headed bald old man in a loincloth and with a thyrsus in his hand, a goat-legged and horned humanoid creature with a syrinx, a man with a shepherd's staff; a woman playing a double flute closes this procession. There are no explanatory inscriptions on the plates, but the characters represented on them are easily identified. On the lower plate, in the figure of a man surrounded by animals and birds, it is quite possible to see Orpheus playing music. And in the characters on the upper plate, Dionysus is easily recognized with his usual retinue: Silenus, Pan, satyr and maenad. All these heroes were very popular in Greco-Roman Egypt, and they did not lose their popularity in the Coptic era. This is evidenced by a significant number of images of Dionysus (often with Ariadne [12]) together with his merry retinue, Orpheus, vines on fabrics, carved bone plates, in a stone scultpura, etc. [13]

The small size of the wooden panel from the Hermitage (on the reverse side of which there is a wooden spike for attaching to another panel), the selection of images on brass plates find a number of analogies in monuments of better preservation, which served, as a rule, as small boxes, caskets for jewelry, boxes for storing incense, etc. a fragment of the box. In my opinion, it was intended as a wedding gift for the newlyweds. This is almost directly indicated by the scene with Dionysus, next to whom his wife Ariadne could be. The Greeks also had another name for Dionysus-Liaeus, which was explained by his function as a liberator from worries and sorrows

10. StrzyKowski J. Koptische Kunst // Catalogue generale des antiquites egyptiennes du Musee du Caire. Wien, 1904. S. 255- 257. N 9038. Taf. XXV; S. 257-259. N 9039. Taf. XXVI; WulffO. Altchristliche und mittelalterliche byzantinische und italienische Bildwerke. Bd 3 (1). V., 1909. S. 181. N 822. Taf. XL; S. 182. N 826. Taf. XL.

11. Strzyowski J. Hellenistische und koptische Kunst in Alexandria // BSAA. 1902. 5. S. 73-95: Marangou L. Bone Carvings from Egypt. I. Graeco-Roman Period. Tiibingen, 1976.

12. It is very likely that Ariadne was depicted to the right of the figure of Dionysus and on the Hermitage plate, lost in this part.

13. For the main literature on this subject and explanations of such an extraordinary phenomenon in Christian art, see <url>. Kakovkin A. Ya. Antique heritage in the art of Coptic Egypt / / VDI. 1997. N 1. pp. 124-133.

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(the Latin nickname of Dionysus / Bacchus, Liber, also has the same meaning.) This is also indicated by the abundance on the plates of the vine. It is clearly associated with the image of the god of wine, fertility, festivals, happiness. Having fun, playing music, dancing companions of Dionysus and Ariadne should convey a sense of joyful, elated, carefree state of the participants of the wedding event. It is possible to see just such an initial purpose of the Hermitage monument in the image of Orpheus, with which the story of his beloved Eurydice is connected. It seems to me that in the immediate proximity of these characters on the same monument, one can see the dialectical principle of the development of human life with its alternating joyful and sorrowful moments.

This monument is also interesting because it was created at the junction of two epochs - fading antiquity and gaining strength of Christianity. This monument is entirely made in the categories of antiquity. There is nothing of the religion of salvation in it - neither in the sense of the selection of images, nor in the artistic approach in the interpretation of pictorial motifs (14). But it is noteworthy that the characters presented on it, without any cardinal external changes in their appearance, will move into the arsenal of Egyptian Christian masters. Moreover, most of these characters will retain their ancient ideas and concepts.

A LITTLE KNOWN OBJECT OF COPTIC METAL PLASTICS FROM THE HERMITAGE COLLECTION

A.Ya. Kakovkin

The article analyses technical and artistic peculiarities of a Coptic metal plastics object from the Hermitage collection (inv. No 13211). This is a wooden panel with three brass plates fixed on it, bearing figures and ornaments. This object, possibly a part of a casket, was brought to the Hermitage from Egypt by V.G. Bok in 1898. In the author's opinion, the object comes from Alexandria and is to be dated back to the late 3rd - early 4th c. AD. The characters depicted on the plates (Orpheus playing music and Dionysos accompanied by satyrs and maenads) attest to the stability of traditions and motifs of the Antiquity in Coptic metal plastics.

14. The striking stylistic discrepancy in the interpretation of the image on the plates (the lower and right plates carry images constructed according to the principles of regularity, dense background filling, contrasting with the images of the upper plate, which differ in a variety of character poses, a clean background, and a sense of free space) is hardly due to the different timing of their execution. Most likely, they were made in the same workshop by different craftsmen (or by the same master who used different matrices). It can be assumed that the master who decorated the wooden box with metal overlays used the plates that were at his fingertips, the images on which corresponded to the wishes and tastes of the customer.

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