A girl in a white cap and apron stands on a chequered floor holding a fish, while a cat stands on its hind legs beside her.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Jacob Cuyp paints a four-year-old girl holding a fish, with a cat beside her

You ask what is going on here? I shall tell you: three hundred and seventy years have passed and nothing has changed. Four-year-old children still torment animals, and the grown-ups still find it amusing. The girl also holds a fish in her right hand. All in all,

NB! · Faith · Art · Heritage · Paris

One of the Treasures of Notre-Dame de Paris, the Marvellous Madonna and Child, a Fourteenth-Century Sculpture, Safe and Sound

NB! · Art · Observations · Nature · Humour

Psyche, a white Persian cat, portrayed by Francis Sartorius the Elder

Psyche, a white Persian cat, captured by the celebrated artist of the day Francis Sartorius the Elder (1734-1804). She looks like the Choupette of her age

The East · Art · Museums · Society

Barge haulers beyond Russia and Georges Daoud Corm’s 1935 painting “Galershchiki”

Barge Haulers on the Nile. Yes, barge haulers existed not only in Russia: the poorest men towed boats upstream, straining at the harness, in France, Belgium, Egypt and other countries, and in some places this form of employment survived until the 1930s. As proof that the destitute in different corners

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Art · Museums

The Sidon Sarcophagi, One of the Chief Treasures of the Beirut Museums

Aristocracy · Art · Humour

Portrait of Marshal Duke de Gontaut-Biron as a peacock and the debate over its meaning

When One Has Not Quite Made Up One's Mind About One's Political Allegiance. A very strange portrait of Louis-Antoine de Gontaut-Biron, Duke and Marshal of France (1700-1788). Art historians dispute whether the depiction in the form of a peacock was a mockery, a

The East · Art · Museums · Observations · Humour

English nightcaps of the Stuart era in the Eastern style

I don't know about you, but I can easily picture myself in one of these Oriental-style hats. Then again, I can picture myself quite well with a Jacquemus handbag too. In fact, these are English nightcaps dating from the reign of the Stuarts, an age inspired on

Majolica dish painted in blue, green and orange: a kneeling saint in a monk's habit with a crucifix above him, a second monk beside him and an ornamental border.

NB! · Faith · Art · Humour

Early 16th-century dish from Deruta showing Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata

Italian dish of the early sixteenth century, comune of Deruta. If you thought that Francis of Assisi was flying a kite in the shape of the crucified Christ, then cross yourself: the scene depicts the saint's receiving of the stigmata from Jesus himself

Faith · Art · Monarchies · Humour

Mary of Modena and the Jesuit James Petre in an image with the infant James Stuart

Mary of Modena was the heroine of such images. Here she is apparently being egged on by the treacherous and, for some reason, exceedingly swarthy (probably for greater conviction as to his malicious intent) Jesuit Sir Edward Petre, counsellor to James II, accused of complicity in the substitution of Mary&

Archaeology · Faith · Art · Museums

Relief of the 2nd century AD dedicated to the goddess Vesta, guardian of the hearth and patroness of the millers' guild, set up at the expense of the baker Pupius Firminus and his wife Mudasena Trophima

Relief of the 2nd century AD dedicated to the goddess Vesta, guardian of the hearth and patroness of the millers' guild, set up at the expense of the baker Pupius Firminus and his wife Mudasena Trophima. In one hand Vesta holds a sceptre, in the other a plate of

A horseman with a sword halts two gnomes in red caps, with hounds nearby, in an evening landscape, in an arched painting in a gilded frame.

Art · Books

Konung Sigrlami of Gardariki forces the dwarves Durin and Dvalin to forge a magic sword

The Danish artist Lorenz Frølich (1820-1908): a scene from the Saga of Hervör. Sigrlami, grandson or son of Odin and king of Garðaríki, caught the dwarfs Durin and Dvalin by brandishing his sword over their heads and so preventing them from vanishing. Sigrlami forced the dwarfs to forge him

Art · Observations · Mores · Humour

Mrs Rattle with her pets and the meaning of the squirrel in early modern English imagery

Good morning: we are breakfasting with Mrs Rattle and her family, a doggie, a kitty, a squirrel and a parrot. I think one ought not to ask a woman who keeps such picturesque company where her husband is. And as for the fact that the squirrel in English images of