NB! · Art · Books · Observations · Humour

Every morning I tell myself: one more day, one more chance to labour according to my strength and talents, like the little angel at the bookbinder's press in the engraving from Jean Leclerc's History of the Netherlands of 1728

Close-up of a painting: a bearded man in red leans in and touches with his finger a wound on the bare chest of a bearded figure in white drapery. Dark background, strong side light.

NB!

The Incredulity of Thomas: the apostle touches Christ's wound, painting detail

The apostle Thomas touches the wound in Christ's side while three other apostles look on, one of them an elderly man in glasses.

Faith · Art · Museums

Hendrick ter Brugghen painted “The Incredulity of Thomas” in 1622, now in the Rijksmuseum

Doubting Thomas. 1622. And he has brought witnesses, one of them even in spectacles. Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588-1629), Rijksmuseum collection

Faith · Monarchies · Museums · Science

Walking mechanical monk of the 16th century in the Smithsonian collection

The Getty research and education project tells the story of this unique artefact, created at the meeting point of science, art and religion. An almost supernatural automaton, 40 centimetres tall and 450 years old, in the form of a monk. The walking, gesticulating wooden figure belongs to the collection of

Spread of an old Soviet book with black-and-white illustrations: a mountain tunnel, the Eiffel Tower, the Mont-Valérien beacon, the Empire State Building and the Magnitogorsk plant.

NB!

Wonders of Engineering: Apennine Tunnel, Eiffel Tower, Skyscraper and Magnitogorsk

Archive · Architecture · Geography · Education · Society

Ancient and Soviet Seven Wonders of the World in the Children's Magazine “Yozh” of 1935

The Seven Wonders of the World in Antiquity:. The Pyramid of Cheops The Gardens of Semiramis The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus The Tomb of Mausolus The Statue of Zeus The Colossus of Rhodes The Pharos Lighthouse. The Seven Wonders of the World under Soviet Power: The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station

Coming Up · Art · Books

The Hobbit to be published in September with more than 50 of Tolkien's own illustrations

In September an edition of The Hobbit with Tolkien's own illustrations will be published. It is the first edition to include an expanded selection of the author's own sketches: the book will contain more than 50 drawings, studies, maps, manuscript pages and paintings by J. R.

Marble stele with a relief of a nude youth playing with a ball, a young servant beside him and a column on the right.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums

Ancient Greek funerary stele of the 5th–4th century BC from Piraeus showing a youth playing with a ball

Funerary stele depicting a naked young man playing with a ball. Beside him stands a boy-servant holding bathing implements. Ancient Greece. 5th-4th centuries BC, Piraeus. National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Light blue porcelain dish with gilded flowers and a hammer and sickle, with a central inscription marking 325 years of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, 1979.

NB! · Art · Society

Dulevo porcelain dish of 1979 for the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia

Propaganda porcelain plate of 1979: the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Dulyovo Porcelain Factory

Archive · Observations · Science

A robot pilot over Berlin and an American calculating machine in the 1930s children’s magazine “Yozh”

There is no need to marvel at modern technology, for it was all thought up long before us. As early as 1935 a robot was demonstrating its mastery of aircraft control in the skies above Berlin, while an American mathematical machine coped with the most formidable equations. And already in

NB! · Books · People

We Can Hardly Hope to Match Brodsky

Gilded bronze figure of Saint Sebastian tied to a dark trunk, in a museum room with red walls and portraits.

Faith · Art

Pietro Tacca's bronze Saint Sebastian tied to a tree, made around 1624

Saint Sebastian tied to a tree. Bronze. Early Baroque, c. 1624. Made by Pietro Tacca (1577-1640), chief assistant to Giambologna and his successor as court sculptor to the Medici

Alexandr Radayev