NB! · Architecture
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NB! · Archaeology · The East · Art · Museums
Iranian silver wine cup with a griffin holds 1.5 litres of wine
An Iranian silver wine cup with a griffin holds 1.5 litres of wine. Its age: more than 2,500 years
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Skeleton in a cloak and plumed hat before a battlefield
NB! · Archive · Art
In 1911 Edgar Bundy depicted Death as a mounted general on a battlefield
Death in the guise of a general on horseback on the battlefield. Edgar Bundy, 1911
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Relief of a banquet scene set against arcades and columns
Faith · Art · Museums
Donatello’s “Feast of Herod” in Lille and the Innovative Perspective of the Marble Relief
How Did Donatello Achieve in Marble the Same Effect That Da Vinci Achieved in Oil Painting? Now held in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the "Feast of Herod" is one of Donatello's greatest masterpieces. The marble version may perhaps yield to the dramatic intensity
Art · Mores · Paris · Humour
The Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris, its name origins and César Baldaccini's centaur
There is a curious street in Paris called Rue du Cherche-Midi, "Seek Noon Street". One version holds that the name comes from an ancient bas-relief of an astronomer taking measurements with a sundial. Another ties the enigmatic, even comical name to the forests that once covered
NB! · Books · Observations · Science · Humour
Incubator shaped like a brooding hen in a description from a 1786 book
An eighteenth-century incubator: I came across a description of an egg-hatching machine in a book of 1786. To lend it a harmonious appearance, the author proposes that it be made in the shape of a broody hen. Yet another confirmation that the technologies of the past were far
Cinema · New York · Pop Culture
Oh, My God!
Oh, my God! So we really did it! You maniacs, you blew it all up! Damn you all to hell! The closing shots of «Planet of the Apes», filmed with a model of the ruined Statue of Liberty, were a director's decision not foreseen by the original screenplay,
NB! · Mores · Society
Will I Really Be Refused the Vote?
Aristocracy · Archive · Moscow · Mores
Moscow Balls in the Winter of 1814 and 1815 in a Letter by Sofya Volkova
The Moscow winter Seasons of 1814-15 were brighter and richer than the pre-war Seasons of 1810-11. This is understandable: people were exhausted by the hardships of war, by ruin, by universal gloom and endless mourning, and when the time came, they returned to life with new and
Aristocracy · Monarchies · People
Marie of Edinburgh, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Alexander II, was the last Queen of Romania
She wrote sensual letters to George V and Nicholas II and was a veritable celebrity of her day. It is to this woman that the Entente owes Romania's abandonment of neutrality and its entry into the First World War on the side of Russia and Britain. Queen Marie