Art · Books · Observations · People · Rome

I got for my labour only a goitre, a sickness (So muddy water bloats the cats, A common plague in parts of Lombardy!) And my chin wedged into my belly; My chest like that of the harpies; my skull, to spite me, Crept up to my hump; and my beard bristles on

I got for my labour only a goitre, a sickness (So muddy water bloats the cats, A common plague in parts of Lombardy!) And my chin wedged into my belly; My chest like that of the harpies; my skull, to spite me, Crept up to my hump; and my beard

Faith · Art · Observations

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem in Giotto's Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

Happy Palm Sunday! The faithful break off branches of olive trees and palms to cast beneath the feet of Christ as he enters Jerusalem. This fresco belongs to the most famous series of works by Giotto di Bondone and is part of the 900-metre painted decoration of the Scrovegni

Art · London · Monarchies · Observations · Ethnography

The Green Man on the invitation and the origins of this motif in medieval art

The invitation to the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla is adorned with a pagan image of the Green Man. At the centre of the invitation sits the head of the Green Man, a widely known motif of medieval architecture, art and folklore. You will surely have seen,

Art · Moscow · Museums

Door from “The Miserly Knight” insured for a million roubles at the Stanislavsky Museum

A famous door from "The Miserly Knight" has been insured for a million roubles at the Stanislavsky Museum. The production was staged by Stanislavsky's Society of Amateur Actors in the building of the English Club. Stanislavsky grew so fond of the door, made to Sologub'

Coming Up · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Observations · Paris

Three portraits of Marie Antoinette by a single artist, the Swedish painter Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller

Marie Antoinette sat for Wertmüller in 1785-88. He worked on commission from the Swedish king Gustav III. Besides the portrait of the queen with her children, Antoinette appeared on several other canvases. The most intimate proved to be precisely the first version. This one, by all appearances, was never

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums

David by Andrea del Verrocchio and David by Donatello

David by Andrea del Verrocchio and David by Donatello. Casts of the fifteenth-century bronze originals. The Italian Courtyard of the Pushkin Museum

NB! · Art · People

Heroic Bust of Victor Hugo by Auguste Rodin, Marble, 1902

Black-and-white photograph of a man and a woman in a room beside a large white bird-shaped bed, with a dog standing on a chair.

NB! · Art · Paris

François-Xavier Lalanne made a bed with a seagull-shaped canopy in the 1960s

A bed with a seagull-shaped canopy. Work by François-Xavier Lalanne, 1960s

NB! · Art · People

Russia in the Paintings of Dmitry Myasnikov 💙

NB! · Art · Museums

Nude Beneath a Blanket

Nude beneath a blanket. Russian Empire, after a model by the Gardner porcelain manufactory, late nineteenth century

NB! · Art · Museums · Ethnography

Hand Embroidery by the Needlewomen of Kostroma for Stalin's 60th Birthday, in the Museum of the Great Kostroma Linen Manufactory

NB! · Art · Books · Observations · People