In 1841 Tropinin painted the heroine of Lermontov’s poem “The Tambov Treasurer’s Wife”

Who better than Vasily Andreyevich Tropinin, founder of the Moscow school of painting, to understand the misery of those self-isolating in a flat without a balcony. The woman at the window in this 1841 picture is the Tambov treasurer's wife of Lermontov's poem of the same name. I advise everyone to read this dashing story of love, or rather of a romance conducted by glances, between the young wife of a bald and avaricious card-player and a gallant uhlan whom she sees in the window of the "Moskovsky" tavern opposite her own. Dunya the treasurer's wife is a dainty morsel, sitting at the window with her needlework, in a dressing gown, while her husband is out. Captain Garin, a spirited handsome fellow and a bachelor, in a Persian archaluk, a cherry-coloured skullcap with a gold tassel and a beaded chibouk, makes the girl fall in love with him without once speaking to her, merely by gazing at her through the window. What happens next you will have to read for yourselves: whether the lovers can be together, and whether they ever leave their rooms

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Zurbarán exhibition at the Louvre opens with the 1627 “Crucifixion” from the Art Institute of Chicago

The Surbarán exhibition at the Louvre opens with the "Crucifixion" that launched the painter's fame in Seville in 1627. The Dominicans of the monastery of San Pablo el Real commissioned 21 paintings from the young Surbarán, and this vast canvas, almost three metres high, became the

Congressman Raskin proposes Smithsonian exhibition on Trump's propaganda

Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman for Maryland, has introduced in the US House of Representatives a bill that would oblige the Smithsonian Institution to create a permanent exhibition on the propaganda of Donald Trump. The bill is entitled the "Preserving and Remembering the History of Trump and Other Tyrants

Bronze Gallic bracelet of the 3rd or 2nd century BC from the Bucquoy necropolis

This bronze bracelet, discovered in the Celtic necropolis of Bucquoy in the department of Val-d'Oise, is an outstanding example of Gallic jewellery-making. The ornament dates from the 3rd or 2nd century BC and belongs to the heyday of the La Tène culture. The piece is distinguished

How silver became the basis of the Ming tax system and why its shortage destroyed the dynasty

The emperors of the Ming dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644, were in dire need of silver in the sixteenth century. It went chiefly on prestige projects such as the Forbidden City in Beijing and the repair of the Great Wall. The historian Mark Cartwright writes in the

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Zurbarán exhibition at the Louvre opens with the 1627 “Crucifixion” from the Art Institute of Chicago

Congressman Raskin proposes Smithsonian exhibition on Trump's propaganda

Bronze Gallic bracelet of the 3rd or 2nd century BC from the Bucquoy necropolis

How silver became the basis of the Ming tax system and why its shortage destroyed the dynasty