Weighing Wax on Scale-Beams in the Narthex of the Church of St. John the Baptist at Opoki in Novgorod at the End of the 12th Century
The Church of St. John the Baptist at Opoki (Церковь Иоанна на Опоках), founded in 1127 in Veliky Novgorod, was much more than a place of worship. It served as the official headquarters for the city’s most powerful merchant guild, known as the “Ivanovo Sto” (The Ivanov Hundred).
In medieval Novgorod, this specific church was the keeper of the republic’s official, standardized weights and measures. Belyukin’s painting depicts merchants and guild officials in the church’s narthex (pritvor) using the “skalvy voshanye”—the official balance scales explicitly reserved for weighing large, high-value blocks of wax. Wax was a crucial export commodity used across Europe for candles and seals.
The painting brings to life the vibrant, bustling economic atmosphere of the late 12th century, portraying authentic period garments, merchant interactions, and the specialized scale equipment monitored under spiritual and civic authority.