Archive · Art · Books · Monarchies

The Black Books of Hours of the Late Fifteenth Century: the Pride of the Masters of Bruges

The Black Books of Hours of the late fifteenth century are the pride of the masters of Bruges. The principal patron of these masterpieces was the Burgundian court. Only a handful of books executed in this technique have survived to our day. To obtain the black pages, the parchment was

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Mores

Grand Duchesses Anastasia, Olga, Maria and Tatiana and Grand Duke Alexei Romanov photographed with their heads shaved after measles, June 1917

Archive · Art · Heritage

On 24 August a painting in the style of Rembrandt went under the hammer at Thomaston Place

On 24 August a painting in the style of Rembrandt was offered at the Thomaston Place auction. From an opening bid of a mere 10 thousand dollars, bidding on the lot closed at 1.4 million. Kaja Veilleux, founder of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, admitted that the painting had been

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · People · Saint Petersburg

A rare photograph of Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Nicholas II, in the uniform of the Life-Guards Ataman Regiment of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsarevich

A rare photograph of Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Nicholas II, in the uniform of the Life-Guards Ataman Regiment of His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsarevich. Saint Petersburg, Wesenberg & Co. studio, 1880s.

NB! · Archive · Architecture · The East · Heritage

The walls of Constantinople on the shore of the Sea of Marmara in the Kumkapı district, photographed in the 1870s by the Assyrian-Armenian photographer Pascal Sébah and the Frenchman Polycarpe Joaillier

Archive · Faith · Society

Leo XIII in the encyclical Rerum Novarum on class hatred and labour

The Encyclical Rerum Novarum: An Open Letter from Pope Leo XIII on the Relations between Government, Business, Workers and the Church. The letter was made public less than 50 years after Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848, which declares and justifies the aims, tasks and methods of

NB! · Archive · Mores

The Regatta in Venice, 18 September 1881

NB! · Archive · Cinema

The Cast of "Dracula" in a Still from a 1931 Promotional Reel

NB! · Archive · Paris

A Balloon over the Tuileries and the Louvre in 1878

NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture

The First Miss America: the American Model Margaret Gorman

The first Miss America was the American model Margaret Gorman. She was born on 18 August 1905. In 1921 she was crowned "Miss District of Columbia". The pageant, later known as "Miss America", was originally called the "Inter-City Beauty" contest.

Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums · People

The Museum of Russian Impressionism is showing an exhibition devoted to one of the first glossy magazines of pre-revolutionary Russia, "Capital and Country Estate", which first appeared in 1913

The Museum of Russian Impressionism is showing an exhibition devoted to one of the first glossy magazines of pre-revolutionary Russia, "Capital and Country Estate" (Stolitsa i usadba), which first appeared in 1913. The display brings together paintings from 44 museums and 14 private collections that either appeared

Archive · Books · Observations

Art historian Vsevolod Petrov in his diaries on love for K. and for books

I think only of books. What do I have? Nothing but books. What would I wish for? Books. And only K. do I love more than books, because for her I am ready not merely to refrain from buying books but even to sell my own, so as to buy