NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Mores

When the ladies of the court, wearied by the unending ball that was the brief reign of Peter III, complained to him that in the tobacco haze of the boisterous public festivities they were obliged to rub shoulders with comic actresses and dancers, the Empe

A Christmas tree ornament shaped like a figure in a crown and a white fur-trimmed cape hangs on a branch beside a red toy bird.

NB! · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

King Charles III and Queen Camilla as Christmas tree ornaments

How do you like this Father Frost and Snow Maiden? King Charles III and Queen Camilla as Christmas tree ornaments

NB! · Art · People

Claude Monet in His Studio

Colour lithograph: two French soldiers in blue uniforms aim over a wooden fence inscribed “Mort aux Russes” at a white bear and a brown bear. A French caption runs below.

NB!

French caricature: soldiers aim at two bears by a fence marked “Death to the Russians”

Archive · Art · Humour

Beware!

Beware! Take care: these two, one in a white greatcoat, the other in a brown one, may well be Russian generals spying on our barriers French caricature of the Second Empire era, 1854. Jean Geoffroy

NB! · Mores · People · Humour

Igor Stravinsky: "I so enjoy drinking Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Strava-whisky"

Cinema · Science · Society · People · Humour

The BBC Has Made Isaac Newton Black

Beethoven, Cleopatra and Hannibal have already been black, so why not Newton this time?

A young woman in an ochre cloak and pink blouse sits and strokes a lamb against a golden patterned background.

Art · Museums

Painting of a seated woman with a lamb from the Art Institute of Chicago collection

Meekness, one of the eight ideal qualities, by the seventeenth-century French artist Eustache Le Sueur. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

NB! · Observations

Aren't you my handsome darling ❤️

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Paris

The Illumination of the Eiffel Tower in 1920

Architecture · Mores · Paris

History of the Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre, from Mill to Dance Hall

The celebrated Montmartre windmill Moulin de la Galette, built in 1622 and immortalised in paintings by Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, stands to this day. Moulin is French for "mill". To be sure, if the nineteenth-century owners of the milling complex are to be believed, a

NB! · Architecture · Heritage

Alexandr Radayev