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Alice Vanderbilt’s “Electric Light” dress and the Vanderbilt lady in “The Twelve Chairs”
The Twelve Chairs mentions a haughty Vanderbilt lady from a French fashion magazine. “The glossy photograph showed the daughter of the American billionaire Vanderbilt in an evening gown. There were furs and feathers, silk and pearls, a cut of extraordinary lightness and a dizzying coiffure.” In other photographs the Vanderbilt
Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris
Relics, artworks, bells and rose windows of Notre-Dame during the fire
The fate of many of Notre-Dame's treasures remains unknown. A piece of the Holy Cross and the holy nails A fragment of the Cross on which Jesus was crucified, and one of the nails from the Crucifixion. A painting of Thomas Aquinas A canvas of the seventeenth
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Society · Paris
Yesterday afternoon the French Minister of Culture tweeted photographs of some of the valuable objects kept in the Cathedral being removed for the duration of the repairs
Yesterday afternoon the French Minister of Culture tweeted photographs of some of the valuable objects kept in the Cathedral being removed for the duration of the repairs. The tweet was posted at 14:41, five hours before the fire
Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Paris
So, what became of the treasures of Notre-Dame de Paris?
So, what became of the treasures of Notre-Dame de Paris? What has survived? The Holy Crown of Thorns It came to France as a gift to Louis IX in 1238. The Crown of Thorns, with several thorns removed (and dispatched to various corners of the world), is kept in
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Heritage
Soissons Cathedral after restoration, with one tower as since the 14th century
This is how the Soissons Cathedral, restored after its destruction, looks today. Yes, with a single tower: that is how it had stood since the fourteenth century, the second tower simply never being completed.
Architecture · Faith · Heritage
Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais, or Soissons Cathedral: one of the largest Gothic cathedrals of France, comparable in size to Notre-Dame de Paris and the cathedrals of Reims and Amiens
116 metres in length, against 130 for Notre-Dame de Paris; height under the vault of the choir: 31, against 33.5 for Notre-Dame; height of the tower: 66, against 69. The church was wholly destroyed during the First World War; in 1914 it literally lay in ruins. The
Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Paris
Fire during repairs at Saint-Sulpice church in Paris damages doors and façade
Incidentally, exactly a month ago, on 18 March, another very significant church in Paris, Saint-Sulpice, caught fire, also during restoration work. Fortunately, the blaze was quickly put out; the doors, part of the façade and part of the interior decoration suffered, and the church is now being restored. What
NB! · Museums · Observations · Nature
A narwhal tusk from the Anatomy Museum of the University of Edinburgh: a marvel, is it not?
Books · Observations · Mores · Humour
There is a well-worn quotation about how Tolstoy created the image of Natasha Rostova: "I took Tanya, ground her up with Sonya, and out came Natasha"
Tanya is Tatyana Andreyevna Bers-Kuzminskaya, Lev Nikolayevich's sister-in-law, who also lived at Yasnaya Polyana; Sonya is his wife, Sofya Andreyevna. Agreed, it is hard, even with the greatest effort, to believe that these women could have been the prototypes of Natasha. For my part, I
Archive · Books · Observations · Society
"A small room, plain, petty-bourgeois
"A small room, plain, petty-bourgeois. Stalin is drunk, 'blind drunk', as they say. There are only men in the room; of the peasants, myself and one other, black-bearded. Without a word, Vissarionovich threw the black-bearded peasant down, covered him with a sheet and raped
Archive · Books · Museums · Observations · Society
I have long wanted to tell you about one project of the Museum of the History of the Gulag: colleagues, together with the Memory Foundation, have created a collection of graphic novellas based on the recollections of people who passed through the cauldron
File on Telegram I have long wanted to tell you about one project of the Museum of the History of the Gulag: colleagues, together with the Memory Foundation, have created a collection of graphic novellas based on the recollections of people who passed through the cauldron of Stalinist repression. The