A mahogany sofa with a blue seat and a doll, two small tables, a cabinet with a bureau and drawings on a dark wall.

NB! · Art · Observations · Society Pages

Children's furniture in the Empire style at the Antiques Salon

At the Antiques Salon I rather fell for this set of children's furniture. It looks exactly like a proper "grown-up" Empire-style study, only everything is made to a reduced scale: note the proportion of the doll to the back of the sofa. The sideboards

Art · Mores · Humour

It's a little chilly, so I've put another dog on your bed

George Sprod, 1956

Collage of torn red and blue paper pieces on a beige ground forming the silhouette of a seated figure, with white strokes below.

NB! · Art

Nicolas de Staël's “Seated Nude” of 1954 at auction at Sotheby's

Seated Nude, Nicolas de Staël, 1954. Currently at auction at Sotheby's

Architecture · The East · Art · Heritage · Science

The bronze griffin on the apse of Pisa Cathedral, its origin and purpose

Pisa Cathedral, occupying the most conspicuous site in Pisa, is unfortunately usually eclipsed by the Leaning Tower and attracts little attention. The building is, nevertheless, extraordinarily interesting. And most interesting of all is the eleventh-century griffin atop a column on the cathedral's apse. How did it come

A figure in a costume with a tall pointed hat, a golden crescent on the headdress, a long staff and a robe decorated with round moon faces.

Art · Pop Culture

Costume for Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” staged by Diaghilev’s company

This is how the Wicked Fairy Carabosse, the antagonist of The Sleeping Beauty, looked in Léon Bakst's version. A costume from the ballet "The Sleeping Beauty" to the music of Tchaikovsky, in the production of Sergei Diaghilev's company.

Detail of a battle painting: a wounded soldier in a dark uniform with red stripes lies on the grass holding another, while a soldier with a musket stands nearby.

Art · Museums

Detail of Horace Vernet’s “The Battle of Somosierra” from the National Museum in Warsaw collection

Please, Do Not Die! Detail from "The Battle of Somosierra" by Horace Vernet, collection of the National Museum in Warsaw

NB! · Art · Museums · Heritage · Paris · Rome

Napoleon stole the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican in 1797 and brought it to Paris with great pomp, installing it as the supreme trophy in the Central Museum of Arts, the future Louvre

Napoleon stole the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican in 1797 and brought it to Paris with great pomp, installing it as the supreme trophy in the Central Museum of Arts, the future Louvre. After Napoleon's fall the statue was returned to Italy

Coming Up · Art · Moscow · Museums

Young Authors' Fair to Present More Than 200 Works by 47 Artists

From 1 to 3 December, the second TUPIK contemporary art fair will take place at the ART4 Museum, 4 Khlynovsky Tupik. This is a fair of a new kind, where every artist appears as an independent author. The project arose as a way of bringing young authors together and supporting

Art · People

Exploration of the Source of the River Orinoco

Spanish surrealist painter Remedios Varo, 1959

NB! · Architecture · Art · Heritage · Paris

Vase with chimeras in the park of Versailles, Parterre du Midi, 1665

Vase with chimeras in the park of Versailles, Parterre du Midi, 1665. During the Revolution, the imperial lilies on the coat of arms were replaced with a sword

Art · Observations

Compressed car by César Baldaccini and anti-form by Vasily Kononov-Gredin

An Evening Dialogue of the Arts: Two Works of Art Made from a Mercedes Car Body. The first is a sculpture by César Baldaccini, or simply César, created by the method of compression: the French sculptor simply placed a car from a scrapyard into a hydraulic press, and then signed

Archive · Art · Books · Museums

Cholera aboard the Melpomene at Toulon in 1833 in Giono's novel and Vernet's painting

In the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille hangs Horace Vernet's "Cholera on Board the Melpomene", painted in 1835 for the Board of Health, which had been assembling a collection on the theme of epidemics for its council chamber since the 1730s. The events aboard the