Art · Observations · Ethnography
Consider this: the image of a townswoman of Suzdal at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Before us is a northern costume. The boundary between the Great Russian North and South is usually taken to be the present-day Moscow Region, so the northern lands are generally held
Art · Monarchies · People · Humour
The Old Man Overstayed His Welcome. Eugène Delacroix, 1855. The painting shows the fifteenth-century Venetian Doge Francesco Foscari, who ruled longer than any other doge: 34 years. Foscari had a most interesting biography, but the choicest episode is this: by then he had become so thoroughly sick to death
Art · Observations · Science · Humour
An engraving of 1646 depicts Prudence (left) and Boldness (right). Besides the ideals of medical practice, the engraving conveys the two principal medical trades of its day: the apothecary's art, with a physician giving medicine to a patient in bed, and surgery, with a surgeon amputating the leg
Observations · Pop Culture · Ethnography
Here is a very enthusiastic young woman from the USA, Sara de Herrera, who made with her own hands a traditional feather mantle of the Choctaw people, who originally lived in the territories of the south-east of the United States. Choctaw women, among the most vivid representatives of the
Archaeology · Books · Mores · People
In 1902 Rudyard Kipling bought, at a bargain price, an ancient house near the hamlet of Burwash in Sussex. The road to the house ran over a high hill, and to climb it a carriage needed a second horse harnessed on, which did little for the property's appeal
Architecture · Monarchies · Observations · Mores
Have you ever noticed these latticed niches just beneath the dome of old theatres? In the royal theatre at the Palace of Fontainebleau, for instance, behind such mesh-covered oculi there lay small chambers with additional seats: the theatrical hierarchy reserved these hidden boxes for people in mourning and, of
Heritage · Mores · Society · Rome
In the last two years alone, 40 cases of vandalism at the Colosseum have been recorded in Rome. And now, at last, the city authorities have updated the legislation governing public order in the capital, which has stood since 1946. The new rules cover both the assistance rendered by police
Books · London · Heritage · Education · Society
Not long ago a plaque was put up in Oxford to commemorate those who worked in slave conditions on the Codrington plantations in the West Indies. It is the work of a group that seeks to publicise Oxford's colonial past. In 2017 its activists demanded that the statues
Faith · Art · Observations · Heritage
It must be said that this is a very strange fourteenth-century tomb, in the village church of Ampleforth in North Yorkshire. And if it struck you that this double monument depicts a married couple, then why is the woman wearing a wimple? Were these people buried in one grave,
Monarchies · Museums · Mores · Paris · Humour
Edward VII (1841-1910) had a special chair for amorous pursuits. Renowned for his unbridled appetites and colourful sexual adventures, the king preferred a particular contraption for comfortable lovemaking with two partners at once. A similar couch is on display at the Sex Machines Museum in Prague, together with a
Archaeology · Faith · Cinema · Books · Museums · Observations
These hands, too, have been raised from the depths, though not of the sea but of a marsh. The pottery found in 1891 in the marsh of Santa Gilla dates from the 4th-3rd centuries BC. These are votive hands, that is, offered as gifts in fulfilment of a vow,
Architecture · In the Press · Heritage · Pop Culture · Humour
Russian Vogue writes rapturously about the Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda show in Sicily. Only the authors, it seems, see no difference between the Pantheon and the Parthenon, which did not prevent them from titling one of their themed pieces "A Lesson in Art History"! Alas, it is