"Madonna with Cherubim" was long considered the work of Giovanni Bellini, until in 1885, during restoration, features characteristic of his chief rival, and incidentally his relative, Andrea Mantegna, came to light. What misled viewers was a softness uncharacteristic of Mantegna. Despite the established title, the Madonna and Child
The silliest thing about this renaming is its poor timing. For when the Pushkin Museum was offered, as a gift, the greatest collection of contemporary art of the second half of the twentieth century, the collection of Peter Ludwig, the very reason for the refusal was the condition that the
Yeeeehaw!
The Comte de Guiche asked Vincent Voiture, a man renowned for his wit, whether it was true that he was married. Voiture gave no answer. But he came to the count after midnight, woke him and said: "I have come to tell you that I am married". De
The depiction of the Bronze Horseman in the engraving by Philibert Boutrois, from Pierre Nicolas Chantreau's «Philosophical, Political and Literary Journey through Russia in 1788 and 1789» of 1794, is surprisingly inaccurate. The inscription «Petro Primo / Catharina Secunda», that is, «Catherine the Second to Peter the First», Boutrois
Each of us, reading day after day this endless stream of news German artist Markus Böhmer, 1908
An unexpected analysis of the preconditions of the American War of Independence
Everything is known by comparison, and property prices above all. While we rightly lament the exorbitant cost of housing in Moscow, the analytical portal Global Property Guide has published a fresh ranking of the price per square metre in European cities. If this table is to be believed, housing costs
Do you remember the heroine of Dickens's Bleak House who saved an African tribe while her own children were tumbling down the stairs? Today, apropos of this, I came across the following remark by an American conservative blogger: The very people who refuse to make any sacrifice for
Evreysky Mir [The Jewish World], a literary miscellany
"The Postponed Past", Moscow. 1991. Barbara Klemm
Fashion is cyclical
The East · Archaeology · Archive · Science
According to records from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur (roughly 2112–2004 BC), the country's sheep population stood at about 320,000 head. One administrative document from Girsu mentions 74,533 sheep. Another lists 816 women weavers who worked under the command of overseers. The
The Golden Age · NB! · Archive · The East · Pop Culture
Lyudmila Gurchenko, Muslim Magomayev and Polad Bulbul oglu
The East · Archive · Books · Education · Nature
Illustrations from a copy of the "Book of the Wonders of the Age" of the 17th-18th century, held at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Marvellous fish illustrate the work of the Arab writer Zakariya ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Qazwini, who lived in the 13th century.
Archaeology · Faith · Science · Nature
A fish diet can make radiocarbon dates of bones look older A Danish-Dutch team of scientists has checked the radiocarbon dating of 27 burials in medieval Danish monasteries. One would naturally suppose that monks and noble laymen could not have been buried at a monastery before the brethren had
The Golden Age · Archaeology
In France, a burial ground of the fifth century has been excavated at Horbourg-Wihr near Colmar. Burials were made here between 450 and 500, that is, in the years of the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. Archaeologists uncovered the graves of 11 adults, three children and two horses,
Faith · Heritage · Society
By 10 November, thirty parishes and monastic communities of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, which belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, had sent appeals to the leadership and deputies of the Lithuanian parliament. The communities object to bills that alter the legal status of the church, curtail its rights and transfer a
The Golden Age · NB! · Faith · Art
Saint George on a black horse, Russian icon of the fourteenth century
Books · Heritage · Society · People · Nature
And, incidentally, having gained experience and taken a closer look, I withdrew from the Society for the Protection of Nature, which had put me on its central council. I also stood aside from the work of the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, in whose organisation and
Faith · Observations · Society · People
It is nine days since the preacher Ignaty Tikhonovich Lapkin of Poteryaevka completed his earthly journey. Within my memory Ignaty Lapkin was perhaps the most vivid and original preacher in all the Russian land. And, curiously, in his last years he gained particular renown through the vast number of admirers
Archaeology · Science · Education · Humour
Soviet researchers once asked themselves: could a Cro-Magnon have entered the Sorbonne? Recent events have given a perfectly definite answer to this rhetorical inquiry
Monarchies · Society · People · Ethnography
Prince William has met the Māori Queen. This is a ceremonial title created in the nineteenth century to unite the Māori tribes. In September 2024, after the death of King Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, a council of 12 elders chose his youngest daughter, Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō,
The East · Architecture · Monarchies · Museums · Heritage
The facade of the Mshatta Umayyad Palace, located in Jordan, presented in 1903 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the German Emperor Wilhelm II as a personal gift. The palace dates from the first half of the 8th century and is believed to have been built before the fall of