NB! · Faith · Art · Heritage · Ethnography

Statues often have teeth, of bone or stone, but when a three-hundred-year-old Christ from San Bartolo Cuautlalpan in Mexico was restored, real human teeth were found in it, complete with roots!!!

Statues often have teeth, of bone or stone, but when a three-hundred-year-old Christ from San Bartolo Cuautlalpan in Mexico was restored, real human teeth were found in it, complete with roots!!! A rather peculiar votive offering

NB! · Observations · Mores · Humour

Don't Forget Your Little Drawers, It's Freezing Out There

Silk embroidery on a waistcoat pocket: two monkeys with fruit among grasses, with a floral border above them.

NB! · Art · Museums · Ethnography · Humour

Eighteenth-century men's waistcoat with embroidered monkeys gathering fruit on the pocket

An eighteenth-century man's waistcoat, with monkeys gathering fruit embroidered on the pocket. And you talk of Gucci!

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Mores

The sad and even chilling tomb of Alice, the 18-year-old wife of the English aristocrat Alexander Denton, with a swaddled infant at her feet: she died in childbirth

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Rubens's Second Wife Walks a Child on a Lead

Rubens's second wife walks a child on a lead. One can see at once what a good mother she is; I would trust her with my own children

Aristocracy · Mores · People · Humour

Scottish aristocrat Jean Johnston Buchan, 80, married a fourth time in 1732, to an 18-year-old

Jean Johnston Buchan claimed that she owed her longevity to changing husbands. In 1732 the 80-year-old Scottish aristocrat married for the fourth time, her husband being an 18-year-old youth

NB! · Art · Humour

It is not what you thought, but Odysseus deceiving the Cyclops

Film photograph looking up at the two spires and large round rose window of a Gothic cathedral façade against a blue sky.

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Monarchies

Rose window of the west façade of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle, built in the 19th century

The ten-metre rose window on the west façade of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle, where the kings of Bohemia lie buried. This part of the principal cathedral of the Czech lands was built in the 19th century; the oldest part of the building dates from 1344

Wooden table with marquetry and gilt bronze, its lid open to show a mirror and side compartments holding tableware and small bottles.

NB! · Art · Observations · Mores

French Combined Table of the Late 18th Century for Breakfast and Make-up

I have fallen in love with this French combination table of the late eighteenth century, for breakfast and for make-up. The side compartments, lined with silk, are for cosmetics; the upper part lifts off and becomes a bed table

NB! · The East · Art · Museums · Mores

When you hear talk of sultan's tea, remember this gold set from the Ottoman Empire

Faith · Books · Humour

Agnellus of Ravenna wrote biographies of bishops he knew nothing about

Agnellus of Ravenna composed biographies even of those bishops about whom he had no information whatever. In his view, men set so high by the Lord could not but have been zealous in faith, virtuous and compassionate. "And I think that I have told no lie," he said.

NB! · Faith · Observations · Society · Humour

As You Can See, the Pope Was in Serious Dependence on Napoleon

As you can see, the Pope was in serious dependence on Napoleon. Not that much has changed in relations between Church and state since, mind you

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