Marble stele with a relief of a nude youth playing with a ball, a young servant beside him and a column on the right.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums

Ancient Greek funerary stele of the 5th–4th century BC from Piraeus showing a youth playing with a ball

Funerary stele depicting a naked young man playing with a ball. Beside him stands a boy-servant holding bathing implements. Ancient Greece. 5th-4th centuries BC, Piraeus. National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Light blue porcelain dish with gilded flowers and a hammer and sickle, with a central inscription marking 325 years of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, 1979.

NB! · Art · Society

Dulevo porcelain dish of 1979 for the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia

Propaganda porcelain plate of 1979: the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Dulyovo Porcelain Factory

Archive · Observations · Science

A robot pilot over Berlin and an American calculating machine in the 1930s children’s magazine “Yozh”

There is no need to marvel at modern technology, for it was all thought up long before us. As early as 1935 a robot was demonstrating its mastery of aircraft control in the skies above Berlin, while an American mathematical machine coped with the most formidable equations. And already in

NB! · Books · People

We Can Hardly Hope to Match Brodsky

Gilded bronze figure of Saint Sebastian tied to a dark trunk, in a museum room with red walls and portraits.

Faith · Art

Pietro Tacca's bronze Saint Sebastian tied to a tree, made around 1624

Saint Sebastian tied to a tree. Bronze. Early Baroque, c. 1624. Made by Pietro Tacca (1577-1640), chief assistant to Giambologna and his successor as court sculptor to the Medici

NB! · Art · People

Félix Vallotton, The White Beach, 1913

NB! · Faith · Art

The Dormition of Saint Mary Magdalene, Silvestro dei Gherarducci, 1380s

A white swan with outspread wings, wrapped in dark iridescent coils, beneath a painted ceiling; a gilded candelabrum and red walls nearby.

NB!

Stuffed swan with spread wings in a hall with a painted ceiling

Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Jan Fabre's "Folly Standing on Death", 2016, and Frans Snyders's "Concert of the Birds", 1630-1640

The birds did not believe the owl, which warned them of the hunter's approach, and paid for it with their lives. Fabre looked at the subject of Aesop's fable in his own way. The work was created for the exhibition "Jan Fabre. Knight of Despair

NB! · London · Monarchies · Pop Culture · Humour

Princess Anne and Her Adidas Sunglasses: An Ageless Alliance

Post-mortem photograph of an elderly man with white hair and beard in an oval frame on a mourning card with a black border.

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Edmond About on Turgenev's service to Russia in his speech at the grave

At Turgenev's graveside, the French writer Edmond François About said: "Your heart belonged to all mankind. But Russia held the first place in your affections. It was Russia you served first and foremost"

Books · Monarchies · Mores · Humour

Writer Alexandra Churchill criticised the library in the home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Churchill's granddaughter ridicules the wretched library in the home of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Alexandra Churchill, a writer and historian, drew attention to the half-empty bookcases, filled with dummy books and odd volumes that are destined to die alone on those shelves. By the lady'

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