NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
Auguste Toulmouche’s painting “Midday Idyll”, created in 1874
Auguste Toulmouche, 1874. A Midday Idyll, or Weary of the Squabbling
Alexandr Radayev
Architecture · Art · Heritage · Paris
Six women restorers are restoring the face of Marianne on the Arc de Triomphe
Six independent women restorers are repairing a symbol of France: Marianne from the sculptural group La Marseillaise, which stands on the Arc de Triomphe. Marianne's face suffered badly during the Yellow Vests demonstration of 1 December 2018, and photographs of her with a smashed cheek went round the
Faith · The East · Art · Ethnography
Saint Helena Discovers the True Cross of the Lord
Saint Helena Discovers the True Cross of the Lord. Jan van Eyck, 1424. Perhaps it is precisely this legend that lies behind the custom of knocking on wood three times, to ward off bad luck or to invite good. The aged mother of the Emperor Constantine, Helena, searched long in
Art · Observations · People
Jacob Vrel, Known Only by His Name, and His Painting “Woman at a Window”
All that is known of the author of this painting is his name, inscribed on several dozen other works created between 1654 and 1662, presumably in Delft and Haarlem. Jacobus Vrel is one of the most enigmatic of the Little Dutch Masters, and mystery hangs over his canvases too, "
Archaeology · Faith · The East · Art · Museums · New York
An alabaster figurine from a Parthian-period necropolis, probably depicting Ishtar, the Akkadian goddess of love, fertility and war
An alabaster figurine from a Parthian-period necropolis, probably depicting Ishtar, the Akkadian goddess of love, fertility and war. The central female deity of the Mesopotamian pantheon is shown as a beautiful girl with a high bust and a narrow waist, ruby eyes, a headdress in the form of a
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Paris · Nature
The holy-water stoup in the Baroque church of Saint-Sulpice, made from a giant tridacna shell: the largest mollusc of its kind weighed 333 kilograms and measured more than a metre in length
Faith · Books · Observations · Humour
Incredibly modern, given the state of affairs in our society, the fifteenth-century Dominican monk Giovanni Dominici, cardinal and persecutor of the Hussites, encoded in the chapter titles of his treatise "The Firefly in the Night" a quotation from the Go
The text, however, is anything but enlightening. And although Giovanni himself stressed that he was not versed in the differences between nouns and verbs and did not know the rules of grammar, he boldly declared that "Poets are the enemies of the true faith and must be removed far
Aristocracy · London · Monarchies · Mores · People
Catherine, younger sister of the nine-day queen Jane Grey, paid with her liberty for marrying without Elizabeth's leave: the Virgin Queen took the marriage of a maiden of the Tudor line for an attempted coup
Catherine, younger sister of the nine-day queen Jane Grey, paid with her liberty for marrying without Elizabeth's leave: the Virgin Queen took the marriage of a maiden of the Tudor line for an attempted coup. All the more so since Catherine Grey had, in Elizabeth's
Faith · Museums · Ethnography
The Lar, Roman household deity, and a statuette in the Weissenburg Roman Museum
The Lar is a very old and most interesting household deity. The Romans held that he watched over the hearth, the house, the family, the clan and the community. The lares were applied to for help in every conceivable matter: from childbirth to the growth of one's income,
Aristocracy · Archive · Observations · Mores
Andrey Rostopchin, son of Moscow's governor-general, looked far older than his years
"A man prematurely aged provokes surprise, if not fear" Countess Lydia Andreyevna Rostopchina applied this conclusion to the memory of her father, Andrey Fyodorovich. Not very flattering words, but the fact is that the younger son of the all-powerful Governor-General of Moscow really did look considerably
NB! · Art · Mores
Sleep and His Half-Brother Death
Sleep and His Half-Brother Death. John William Waterhouse, painted in 1874, after the death of two of the artist's brothers from tuberculosis. Incidentally, the picture illustrates well the old European fashion for sleeping in a half-seated position, which enlightened people considered the most correct for one&
NB! · The East · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris · Humour