Description

Two large broadsides in Russian language show a calendar and instructions how to use it. The Calendar shows the Peter and Paul Fortress (Russian: Петропа́вловская кре́пость, Petropavlovskaya Krepost) is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, positions of the sun and moon, and different plates with calculations for planting crops, depending on the calendar. The text on another sheet are instructions how to use the calendar.

This pair of lubki was made extremely elaborate and their dimension and complicated suggests, they were not meant to be sold to common people as broadsides, but were probably made for richer land owners.

These are two sheets, but probably there were published more in these series, as suggested by the numbers in the lower corners (these are numbers 2 and 6 of the serial number 658). We could not trace any other examples of sheets from this series in the institutions.

Lubki

A lubok (pl. Lubki) is a Russian broadside in the style of folk art. 

They started gaining their popularity in the 17th century, when they were produced as crudely engraved wood-cuts. Still extremely popular, especially among common people in the 19th century, they were replaced by more modern technologies, such as lithographs and heliotype prints.