Archive · Art · Books · People

Do not tell me you have ever seen a more bewitchingly frail image of a writer in infancy than this engraving, "The Birth of Victor Hugo", of 1881, from the collections of the municipal library of Besançon, where the future classic of world…

Do not tell me you have ever seen a more bewitchingly frail image of a writer in infancy than this engraving, "The Birth of Victor Hugo", of 1881, from the collections of the municipal library of Besançon, where the future classic of world literature came into the world

NB! · Archive · Art · Moscow

Very young Yevgeny Korenev (played 1927-1952, dates of life unknown to me), Dmitry Kamernitsky (1897-1972) and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858-1943) in the roles of warriors

Archive · Books · Mores · Humour

"On Wednesday he called them hangmen, And on Thursday, tempted by their victuals, He was polishing their boots at «Nakanune»

"On Wednesday he called them hangmen, And on Thursday, tempted by their victuals, He was polishing their boots at «Nakanune». That service did not go unrewarded: A count, a landowner and a bourgeois squared, He is now being published by «Gosizdat»" Literal translation Sasha Chorny, A.N. Tolstoy,

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Mores · Pop Culture

Lee Radziwill (1933-2019), Janet Lee Bouvier (1907-1989), Jackie Kennedy (1929-1994)

Lee Radziwill (1933-2019), Janet Lee Bouvier (1907-1989), Jackie Kennedy (1929-1994). Three women of the Bouvier family who in their day shone in the social firmament of the United States

Detail of an oil painting: a baby in a white bonnet with a blue bow lies in a cradle with floral fabric, holding a red-handled drum rattle. A yellow flower is in the foreground.

NB! · Archive

Infant in a cradle holding a rattle, detail of an oil painting

Painting of an infant in a white bonnet lying in a cradle under a floral canopy, with a woman in a white cap seated beside it.

NB! · Archive · Art · Observations · Mores

Jean Monet, Claude Monet's first son, in his cradle with toys and flowers

What are the advantages of having a celebrated Impressionist for a father? Besides money and fame, there is, for instance, beauty in every detail of one's surroundings. Here is tiny Jean Monet, the first son of Claude Monet, in a cradle amid quite extraordinary toys and flowers.

Archive · Geography · Maps · Observations · Rome

Map of Rome from a Ptolemy codex of the late 15th century with the Colosseum and Pantheon

In my view, the best kind of map. Fidelity of scale and distance is of no real consequence for finding one's way anyway, nor are superfluous features, which distract the eye from what truly deserves to be marked on a map. A view of Rome from a codex

Archive · The East · People · Pop Culture

Elizabeth Taylor's 1976 trip to Iran with photographer Firouz Zahedi

In 1976 Elizabeth Taylor visited Tehran in the company of her friend, the celebrated Hollywood photographer and cousin of the Iranian ambassador to the United States, Firooz Zahedi. The series of photographs Zahedi took on that trip was shown in Los Angeles in 2011. According to Firooz Zahedi's

NB! · Archive · Observations · Humour

With this photograph I would like to inform everyone else who has been snowed under by blizzards and battered by frosts that in February 1957 there was considerably more snow

Archive · Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Humour

When anyone begins to praise Metlakh tiles to excess, remember this passage from the report of the architect-restorer Pyotr Pokryshkin to the Imperial Archaeological Commission on his inspection of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery of Zvenigorod…

“I found the painting of the monastery's bell tower complete. To my great regret, the painting has been done in oil paints in the former pale pink, banal colour, without the permission of the consistory, and consequently before the Commission's opinion was received. Having learnt from

NB! · Archive · People

Vsevolod Meyerhold's Birth Name Was Karl Kasimir Theodor

Archive · The East · Society · Humour

Golda Meir criticised Kissinger for insufficient support of Israel in 1973

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir criticised Henry Kissinger for not supporting Israel enough, despite the fact that he practises Judaism. Kissinger wrote to her: “I wish to inform you that, firstly, I am a citizen of the United States, secondly, Secretary of State, and only thirdly