NB! · Art · Monarchies · Moscow

The Coronation of Nicholas II, Valentin Serov

NB! · The East · Art · Books · Ethnography

A Tatar Kalmak

A Tatar Kalmak. Engraving from Philippe Avril's "Travels into Divers Parts of Europe and Asia, Undertaken by the French King's Order to Discover a New Way by Land into China", 1693

NB! · Art · Madrid · Museums

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch, 1490-1500, detail

Close-up of an outfit with a floral velvet bodice, a rococo porcelain-style belt framing a tureen, and a red patterned skirt.

NB! · Art · Pop Culture

Mary Katrantzou presents her Autumn-Winter 2011 collection with a porcelain-style corset

This really is cool. Mary Katrantzou, Autumn-Winter 2011 collection

Painting by Van Gogh: a man in a red jacket and hat walks with a dog along a road between snowy fields, with trees and mountains beyond.

Art · Museums · New York

Van Gogh's snowy fields near La Crau, in the Guggenheim Museum in New York

Snowy Landscape, Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Fields in the environs of La Crau, opposite the abbey of Montmajour. One of ten snow-covered landscapes painted by Van Gogh between 1882 and 1889. Collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Art · Monarchies · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Imperial Parade of the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards, Boris Kustodiev, 1906

Imperial Parade of the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards, Boris Kustodiev, 1906. Hermitage collection. The painting was commissioned by the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards on the occasion of Nicholas II's visit to the regiment and the presentation to it of its colonel-in-chief, the

NB! · Art

Arran, Phil Greenwood

Art · Museums · Heritage · Saint Petersburg

Five El Greco paintings in Russian museums and the history of their arrival

By various estimates, El Greco's surviving painted oeuvre today comprises between 137 and 300 pictures. Russian museums hold only 5 canvases by El Greco: 3 in the Hermitage, 1 in Nizhny Novgorod and 1 in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The first El Greco picture purchased

Detail of an oil painting with a cracked paint surface: a fluffy white cat looks upward against a dark background.

NB! · Art · Nature

Jean-Jacques Bachelier painted “The Cat and the Butterfly” in 1761

The Cat and the Butterfly. Jean-Jacques Bachelier, 1761

Faith · The East · Art · Books

"A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter"

"A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter." And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There

Painted wooden statue of a barefoot standing woman with long wavy hair in a torn yellow garment, on a plinth in a dark gallery.

Coming Up · Faith · Art · Moscow · Museums

Sculpture of Mary Magdalene attributed to Pedro de Mena at the Pushkin Museum exhibition

Saint Mary Magdalene, a wooden sculpture of the 17th century, attributed to the Spaniard Pedro de Mena. Collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition at the Pushkin Museum, “The Spanish Collection. From the Holdings of Russian Museums”, is open until 4 February

Art · Museums

Cassandra as a Sibyl and Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, in richly decorated costumes

Cassandra and Penthesilea, Heroines of the Trojan War. The prophetic daughter of Priam is presented in the guise of the soothsayer Sibyl, but with a somewhat more majestic bearing and a richer costume. Her headdress with its pointed plume is executed in the Eastern style, and its height signals the