NB! · Art · Ethnography

Boyarynya, Konstantin Makovsky

A white dove with an ear of wheat in its beak on a tiled floor, and a second dove in a gilded basket beside drapery, from a painting.

NB! · Art

Doves in a detail of Louis Jean-François Lagrenée’s “Mars and Venus”, 1770

Louis Jean-François Lagrenée, Allegory of Peace, detail of the painting Mars and Venus. 1770

Archive · Faith · Art · Humour

A Centaur Complains to Saint Anthony

A centaur complains to Saint Anthony. About the monkey, presumably. From a fifteenth-century manuscript on fantastic beasts

Painted portrait of a fair-haired boy in dark blue clothing, seated in an ochre armchair against a blue sky.

Art

Viktor Vasnetsov paints a portrait of his son Boris, aged nine

Viktor Vasnetsov. Portrait of his son Boris. In the year the portrait was painted, the boy was 9 years old

A bearded old man in a white robe with a staff walks hand in hand with a youth in a blue tunic while a dog barks at them.

NB! · Art

William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s painting “Homer and His Guide”

Homer and His Guide. Adolphe William Bouguereau

NB! · Art · Monarchies · People

Queen Victoria on Horseback

Three-panel altarpiece on a gold ground, with Saint Peter enthroned in the centre holding a key, a kneeling figure at his feet and saints standing at the sides.

Faith · Art · Museums · Rome · Humour

Cardinal Stefaneschi presents the triptych itself to Saint Peter in Giotto's triptych

The Stefaneschi Triptych in the Vatican Pinacoteca contains the so-called Droste effect, named after a tin of cocoa that bore an image of itself bearing an image of itself. If you look closely, on the central panel of the triptych Giotto depicted the patron of the work, Cardinal Stefaneschi,

Black vase with red-figure decoration: a ship with oarsmen, Odysseus tied to the mast and three Sirens as birds with women's heads.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · London · Museums

Red-figure stamnos of the 480s BC with Odysseus and the Sirens, British Museum

Odysseus and the Sirens. Red-figure stamnos, 480s BC. Collection of the British Museum

NB! · Archive · Art · Ethnography

Czech Carnival in Olomouc, 1968

Czech carnival in Olomouc, 1968. Photograph by Josef Koudelka; the picture is titled Exiles

NB! · Art

Mark Rothko, Yellow and Blue, 1954

Faith · Art · Observations

The Bogolyubovo Icon of the Mother of God, regarded as the earliest image of the Intercession

Into my mind comes the image of the Bogolyubovo Icon of the Mother of God, commonly called the oldest iconographic depiction of the Protection. Created between 1158 and 1174, the icon is held to be the first ever painted on Russian soil. The story of its making is traced to

Art · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture

At the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, the master's designs are displayed beside works that inspired, or might have inspired, their creation, as in the case of this black-and-white satin crêpe dress from…