NB! · Art · Observations · Paris

I adore this horse from Édouard Manet's Races in the Bois de Boulogne, 1872

A girl in a white dress and veil kneels at an altar holding a book, beside a man in a dark coat and an altar boy.

Art · Observations · People

A painting Pablo Picasso made at fifteen and the later change in his style

Can you believe that this painting was made by Pablo Picasso? And yet it is so. The artist was then 15 years old. One wonders what must have happened for Picasso's style to undergo such a significant change

NB! · Art · People · Humour

The Renaissance Pets of the American Artist Diane Angstadt Wish You a Good Mood

Porcelain figure of a bearded man in pink drapery holding a nude child to his mouth, displayed in a museum case.

Art · Humour

Porcelain figure from the Wallendorf manufactory, made in the 1770s

Never Ask Saturn What He Had for Lunch. Porcelain figure, Wallendorf manufactory, 1770s.

NB! · Art · New York · Humour

The Mona Lisa in the New York Subway

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Mood for the week: a porcelain Bolognese of the Meissen Manufactory, 1734

Mood for the week: a porcelain Bolognese of the Meissen Manufactory, 1734. Modelled by Johann Joachim Kändler, collection of the Louvre, donor a former consul of the Ottoman Empire in France, Isaac de Camondo

Triple gold ring with five stones, blue and pale ones at the sides and a green stone in the centre, photographed on a light background.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums

Roman gold ring for three fingers, made in the 3rd century AD

Roman gold ring for three fingers. 3rd century AD.

Art · Monarchies · Mores · Paris

The only reliable image of a masquerade at the Louvre, made at the wish of Louis XIV

People had danced in masks as early as the Renaissance, but the first masked ball as we know it appeared only at the court of the young Louis XIV, and it was held in the Louvre. The people in the centre of the hall hold hands and perform the old

NB! · Art · Humour

A View of the Acropolis

A View of the Acropolis. Caricature by Boris Efimov, 1962

Art · Society

Daniele Accossato's 2015 Work “Stolen Cupid” Shows Packed and Crated Works of Art

The Stolen Cupid, 2015. By the contemporary Italian artist Daniele Accossato. Accossato reimagines the fate of classical works of art, portraying them stolen, wrapped up, deprived of liberty and ready for dispatch. It is an allegory of the workings of the modern art world, which commercialises works of art and

Art · Museums · Observations

Washington statue, Napoleon portrait and Hermitage Jupiter modelled on Phidias's Zeus

George Washington and Napoleon in the Guise of Zeus-Jupiter. The magnificent marble Washington was commissioned by Congress in 1832 to mark the centenary of the first president's birth. The sculpture is the work of Horatio Greenough. Today the statue, 3.5 metres high, is displayed in the

Fantasy Art Nouveau mansion with a huge arched stained-glass window, turrets, a green roof and a red wooden door above stone steps.

NB! · Architecture · Art · Moscow · Humour

A digital artist imagines how the Ryabushinsky mansion might look in Europe

The Ryabushinsky Mansion, had it lived in Europe. The building is imaginary, created by a digital artist