Archive · Art · People
In all, up to 16 thousand men from Württemberg took part in the Russian campaign; only a few hundred of them returned from Russia.
Coming Up · Interviews · Art · Moscow · Observations
The Art Newspaper has run a piece on a grand exhibition by the well-known Moscow collector Max Boxer, which opens on 19 March and will transform the IN ARTIBUS foundation's space into a flat filled with genuine belongings and interiors of the Boxer family. I gather that
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Rome · Humour
Overdosing on fillers: when the Emperor Trajan cannot be told from the Emperor Vespasian. The large marble so-called Bosham Head of AD 121 was found in West Sussex in 1800 and is on display at the Chichester District Museum.
Art · Museums · Heritage · Paris
The Sounds of the Tocsin have a curious fate: in 1892 they were shown in the French pavilion at the World's Fair. After being purchased, the painting ended up in the Museum of Picardy, founded by Napoleon, though whether the artist himself gave the canvas to the museum
Archive · Art · Museums · Observations
How works of colossal size are exhibited is more interesting still. Look at the system of blocks and ropes that several workmen used to hang a large-scale painting in the Museum of Picardy a little over 100 years ago. As far as I know, the photograph shows work on
Art · Moscow · Observations
Not long ago, at a lecture by a very educated woman, the question was put of how enormous canvases were carried through the narrow lanes of Moscow to be hung in the mansion of a famous collector. How astonished I was that this lady-in-waiting of the writing profession
Art · London · Moscow · Observations · Saint Petersburg
A whole cartload of letters about the Moon in various public places arrived over the weekend. Here, for instance, is a colossal Moon at the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Gorky Park in Moscow. In Milan it was a public swimming pool. The seven-metre sphere also shone in
Architecture · Faith · Art · Observations
These are not stills from a science-fiction film or a dystopia. Rochester Cathedral is simply inviting visitors to the Museum of the Moon beneath its vaults. The art project of the British artist Luke Jerram, who travels the world with a giant inflatable model of the moon, its surface
Faith · Art · Observations · Humour
My favourite pig in the history of world culture, apart from Babe the piglet, of course, is the charming porker of Anthony of Egypt in a late seventeenth-century sculpture in Segovia Cathedral. Just look at this sweet pig with the little spot on its snout! ❤️🐽 Saint Anthony has been
Art · Observations · Society Pages
At a lecture by the publisher Natalia Semenova at Club 418 I learnt that Vermeer's "Allegory of Faith" was bought as a painting of dubious attribution, or at any rate with a forged signature on it. It found its way into the collection of Dmitry Ivanovich
Faith · Art · Observations
In the photograph with Iphigenia, the Ethiopian king's daughter from the Martyrdom of St Matthew, there are two young saints: Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, a Carmelite nun of the 16th and 17th centuries who recorded in her diary mystical apparitions of the Mother of God and of
Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour
And who is this pockmarked fellow with the playful ringlets? Charles IV, King of Spain, deposed in 1808, bears a resemblance to Trump, especially, as you can see, from behind. Why the Spaniard Juan Boisil painted such a portrait is unclear. Still, given the year of its creation, 1818, one