Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Science
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired a newly discovered painting by Diego Velázquez. The work is the first piece by the seventeenth-century Spanish master in the museum's collection. Velázquez painted the bust-length portrait around 1626; it depicts Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares.
Aristocracy · Observations · Education · Pop Culture
Tilda Swinton remembered boarding school as a very lonely place. West Heath Girls School was a prestigious, though not first-rank, private school for girls. In the mid-1970s boarding there cost some £1,500 to £2,000 a year, which in those days placed the school within reach of
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Observations · Society
If you are wondering why you should be burdened with this pile-up of strange names, I shall say that, true, these persons are of no great importance, but the fact itself is interesting: in the Austrian town of Bad Aussee a wedding has taken place that united Indian and
Aristocracy · Books · London · Museums · Observations · Society
The mechanics of the project are as follows: a library reader in Derbyshire borrows a "community card" just as he would borrow a book, for a week, free of charge. The card gives entry to the house, the garden, the farm and the playground for a group of
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · Ethnography
Inside the future Queen Mother's house there are two lived-in floors: a bedroom with a canopied bed and a marble fireplace, a state dining room with a laid table and a chandelier, and a drawing room with armchairs and a screen. The bedroom is a miniature copy
Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Museums
Interestingly, the painting "Allegory of Hearing", executed in 1617–1618 by the Flemish artists Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, captures not merely the collection of curiosities and luxuries belonging to the rulers of the Netherlands, Archduke Albert VII and his wife Isabella, but also music
Aristocracy · The East · Monarchies · Mores · People
The title "Queen of the Hellenes", rather than "Queen of Greece", is not diplomatic courtesy but a political declaration. Olga Konstantinovna Romanova was a granddaughter of Nicholas I and a daughter of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. In 1867, at the age of sixteen, she married King
Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Society
The Russian publicist Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky, a Kammerherr (chamberlain) of Emperor Alexander II, wrote in 1870 to Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich and Maria Feodorovna: All those who are not at court, all who work honestly for the good of the government and of Russia, who are selflessly devoted to
Aristocracy · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage
So this is the sorry state of the rear façade of the once-famous palace of Count Kirill Grigoryevich Razumovsky, built in the 1780s. To a design by Bazhenov, or by Kazakov, or by someone else altogether. The view of the opposite façade, facing Vozdvizhenka, is blocked by the Kremlin
Aristocracy · London · Observations · Mores
I have been reading about the strange death of the 8th Marquess of Ailesbury. Two years ago, Michael Brudenell-Bruce, aged 98, died after falling from a window of his London home in Shepherd's Bush. The marquess's body was found by his partner; he lay in
Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Mores · Paris · Pop Culture
Hosted by Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and her husband Baron Guy de Rothschild at their family estate, the Château de Ferrières in Seine-et-Marne, France. The dress code, written in mirror script, read: "Black tie, long dresses and surrealist heads". As the guests arrived, searchlights played
Aristocracy · Archive · Architecture
Photograph by Alexander Zhivago