Archaeology · Art · Museums · Mores · Ethnography

Etruscan paired funerary urn of the 500s BC and the place of women at the banquet

One of many paired Etruscan funerary urns, 500s BC. It is generally held that the spouses depicted are sharing a meal. The wife may be passing her husband an aromatic liquid, perfume or oil, while in her left hand she holds a pomegranate, the symbol of immortality. Hm. Two on

Black-and-white drawing of a vaulted room with a column. Two colour panels hang on the walls: a ring of orange nude figures and a group of figures on a blue-green ground.

NB!

Sketch of an interior with two panels: orange figures on blue and green

Archive · Art · Moscow · Mores

Correspondence between Shchukin and Matisse on the panels “Dance” and “Music” for a staircase

The Russians bought so much Matisse that admirers and friends even asked him whether his pictures would soon be visible only in Moscow. Shchukin commissioned Dance as a large panel for a staircase landing, together with a second large canvas, Music. A touching correspondence passed between patron and painter: on

Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums

Collector Shchukin acquired 37 paintings by Matisse over seven years of acquaintance

The calling card of the Shchukin collection: Henri Matisse's Dance. Matisse's canvases occupy a special place in Shchukin's collection, just as the artist himself does in the life of the collector. As for Shchukin's place in the life of Matisse, the reformer

Studio interior in a gilt frame: lilac walls, red floor, yellow rug, a screen draped with dark blue floral fabric, sculptures, an easel and paintings.

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Henri Matisse, The Pink Studio: painting in a frame on a museum wall

Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · People · Saint Petersburg

Sergey Shchukin's Collection of French Painting in the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum

Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso: Sergey Ivanovich Shchukin devoted 20 years of his life to acquiring paintings from the finest French artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Fauves cost the merchant 1 million francs; today its value is estimated at

Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Mores

Do you know what is curious?

Do you know what is curious? The daughters of Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin by different women, Ekaterina and Irina, were both married to Counts Keller. The elder married the bibliophile Mikhail Pavlovich, and the younger his nephew, and from that marriage was born André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud, one of the organisers

Observations · Science · Education · Humour

A wave to all my lecturers at the Higher School who made us cram Excel

A wave to all my lecturers at the Higher School who made us cram Excel. Some 20% of the genetic studies published in leading scientific journals contain errors caused by the autoformatting settings in Microsoft Excel. You have surely run into it yourselves, when the programme swaps the data you

NB! · Observations

But There Is Good News, Too

Books · Humour

...“I think I understand him,” said Gargantua. “It puts me in mind of the answer of an ancient philosopher who was asked whether he had possessed a certain woman of whom people were speaking: ‘I have her, yes,’ replied the philosopher, ‘but she has never

...“I think I understand him,” said Gargantua. “It puts me in mind of the answer of an ancient philosopher who was asked whether he had possessed a certain woman of whom people were speaking: ‘I have her, yes,’ replied the philosopher, ‘but she has never had me; I possessed her

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

There Are Only Two Kinds of Captive

There are only two kinds of captive. The prisoner taken in battle (suffering in some cave) and the bound captive with bleeding wounds (relieving himself without the aid of his hands, gazing proudly). Which of the two is our favourite, I think, needs no explaining

Painting of a centaur with a deer's body and antlers, head thrown back, an arrow in his chest, on a meadow with small flowers.