Dressed for the Weather

Sabina Poppaea, unknown artist of the School of Fontainebleau, 1550–1570, Museum of Art and History, Geneva.

Tacitus wrote that the Empress Poppaea, wife of Nero, drew the attention of the Romans by strolling about naked, wrapped only in a gauze veil, as women of easy virtue commonly went. This subject was a favourite of the School of Fontainebleau and was often reproduced by artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the aristocratic ladies themselves frequently asking to be portrayed in the guise of the feigned modesty of Sabina. Much as today, in short.

The Geneva museum believes that this most famous portrait in the guise of Poppaea depicts Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II.

Report a translation error

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Dressed for the Weather

Read more

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s