Coming Up · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Paris
The sale will take place on 25 June at Sotheby’s in Paris. Among the lots: Napoleon’s bicorne hat, made by his court hatter Poupard and presented by General Mouton. A campaign bed with a canopy. A ceremonial sword and sceptre used at Napoleon’s coronation in Notre-Dame
NB! · Observations · People · Humour
Books · Monarchies · Mores · People · Saint Petersburg
Within ten days of her accession to the throne, Catherine II had invited Denis Diderot to come to Russia. She even proposed that he move the publication of the "Encyclopédie", which kept running into bans in France, to Riga or Saint Petersburg. But Diderot did not take up
Faith · Art · Museums · Paris
The Louvre has acquired a private collection of 272 icons from Greece (including Crete), the Levant, Russia and other regions. The collection spans the period from the 15th to the early 20th century. The acquisition is a significant contribution to the museum's holdings, as it plans to establish
Faith · Art · Observations · Rome
Could the Vatican not have done without this gleaming sphere by Arnaldo Pomodoro? The so-called sculpture was installed back in the 1990s, under John Paul II, which does nothing to mitigate its ugliness. It looks more like some trinket from a metallurgical industry exhibition than a work of art
Art · London · Humour
A Lovely Tan, but at What Price! The Lament for Icarus, a painting by Herbert James Draper, painted in 1898
Books · Society
The State must always be ready to sacrifice the government for the people, and not the people for the government. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. in order that the body of the Government may have an existence of its own, a real life that distinguishes it from the body
The East · Geography · Maps
The Aral Sea appears on maps of Asia only at the very end of the seventeenth century. Indeed, many atlases of even later date, such as this atlas by Sanson, still show the Caspian Sea as if it were two seas in one: they mark the Syr Darya and the
NB!
Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations · Heritage
The marble reliefs depict, for the most part, agricultural workers. This is presumably meant to allude to the chief farming trade of each Soviet republic. Why 16 republics? The Union republics, the RSFSR included, numbered 15 from 1956 onwards; in 1950, when the station opened, there was still the Karelo-
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris
NB! · Architecture · Monarchies · Heritage