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Goethe in Johann Tischbein's portrait and the explanations for his two left legs

Remembering Goethe today, 188 years since his death. I do like the way that, in the portrait by his friend Johann Tischbein, who won his fame precisely through his portraits of Goethe, he has settled himself in the pose of an ancient Roman upon a ruined Egyptian obelisk, beneath an

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Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebryakova

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More Goncharova

Gallery wall with a large sketch of a costumed female figure in a gold frame at the centre, surrounded by smaller drawings in dark frames.

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Natalia Goncharova's drawing “Sketch of a Woman's Dress with a Boa”, second half of the 1920s

Natalia Goncharova. “Design for a Woman’s Dress with a Boa”. Second half of the 1920s.

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The heart of the exhibition, as Max Boxer himself puts it, is a special space that holds exclusively family things: the works of his father, Anatoly Boxer, his grandmother's personal belongings, furniture from his mother's flat, remember…

The heart of the exhibition, as Max Boxer himself puts it, is a special space that holds exclusively family things: the works of his father, Anatoly Boxer, his grandmother's personal belongings, furniture from his mother's flat (remember, I wrote of how she lamented the emptying of

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Eighteenth-Century Silver and Table Curiosities Made from Nuts

Eighteenth-century silver and table curiosities made from nuts. I wrote once about similar exhibits in the Armoury Chamber and in the Metropolitan Museum. But some people simply keep such things at home

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One of the best-known works in the collection: Konstantin Somov

One of the best-known works in the collection: Konstantin Somov, “Alexandra Levchenko”, 1936. A preparatory study for La Belle Simonetta. I give here the text from Somov's diary of 1934. But Maxim himself says that for him this is, above all, Alexandra Levchenko in the guise of

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Display cases with eighteenth-century glass: for the collector what matters here is not the glass but the engraved design, since the whole conception of this collection rested on the uniqueness of the engravings

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Friends!

Friends! I invite you to the private view of Maxim Boxer's exhibition A Collector's Dream at the In Artibus foundation. Max is in the photograph and sends his regards; he kindly answered a few simple questions by way of a first introduction to his collection. The

Architecture · Art · Observations · Society · Paris

Studying the bas-relief of the Palais de la Porte Dorée, one notices a peculiarity shared by all the colonial figures: like the images of ancient Egypt, they face the viewer in profile, and only the allegorical figure of France, on the central axis of the

Studying the bas-relief of the Palais de la Porte Dorée, one notices a peculiarity shared by all the colonial figures: like the images of ancient Egypt, they face the viewer in profile, and only the allegorical figure of France, on the central axis of the composition above the doorway,

Architecture · Art · Observations · Paris

Whenever I recall the delightful façade of the Palais de la Porte Dorée on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, I wonder whether mankind will ever invent anything so aesthetically flawless and inspired as the Art Deco tradition.

The building, which now houses a tropical aquarium and a museum of the history of immigration, was originally created as an exhibition space for the six-month Colonial Exhibition held in Paris in 1931. The entire façade of the Palace of the Golden Gate is covered with bas-reliefs depicting

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Frozen, despairing, dying soldiers of Napoleon, and Napoleon himself, absently warming his hands by a dying fire: such are the sketches of scenes witnessed in Russia left by Faber du Faur, an officer of the Württemberg Corps

In all, up to 16 thousand men from Württemberg took part in the Russian campaign; only a few hundred of them returned from Russia.