NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

How exalted young ladies from well-to-do families present themselves vs how they look in reality.

NB! · Art · London · Mores · People

The celebrated English courtesan and actress Nell Gwyn, her bosom bared, strokes a lamb on the head: in 1670 this was a thoroughly fashionable subject for a portrait

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Cinema · Pop Culture · Humour

Mr Bean in William Hogarth's "The Toilette" of 1743

Mr Bean in William Hogarth's "The Toilette" of 1743. The acknowledged master of irony at the expense of the English aristocracy could hardly have imagined that his picture would still be raising a laugh more than 200 years later

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Though, you know, looking at this Ganymede, for instance, only one thought comes to mind: he did go and find himself some adventures to sit on

Marble relief on a red wall: a large eagle bends toward a seated, half-naked youth who feeds it from a bowl.

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg · Humour

Relief in the Hermitage showing Ganymede feeding the eagle, the form Zeus took

Zeus stole the beautiful Ganymede by turning himself into an eagle. I do not know whether the youth is feeding the bird on this bas-relief from the Hermitage before the abduction or after it, but I think you will have understood what a vile, lecherous beast this Zeus was

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Art · Saint Petersburg · Humour

The Bengal Lion and Tiger and the Petersburg Lion and Tiger

The Bengal Lion and Tiger and the Petersburg Lion and Tiger. A caricature, presumably of the 1840s, from the album of Prince Pyotr Urusov. In the guise of the Petersburg lion is Arkady Pavlovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov (above)

A woman in a dark dress and diadem tips a man in armour and a red cloak over a stone parapet, with a copper jug below.

NB! · Art · People

Timoclea of Thebes in a 1659 painting by the Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani

Timoclea of Thebes throws her rapist into a well. Elisabetta Sirani, 1659. The Bolognese painter produced a whole series of pictures on historical and mythological subjects devoted to avenging women and women of strength

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

The New Year has begun splendidly, and at last I have found an excellent cat for the front door

The New Year has begun splendidly, and at last I have found an excellent cat for the front door. The eighteenth century remains my favourite by far, and this is, well,

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

"Why is the child kissing a naked woman?" "Pay no attention, he is a pupil of Michelangelo"

NB! · Art · Books · Mores

The girl with a squirrel is no accident in the engraving illustrating the tale from the Canterbury Tales of decrepit January and his young and faithless May, who cuckolds the old man under his very nose

Engraving of a woman in a lace and ribbon-trimmed dress holding a squirrel with a bushy tail on her arm.

NB! · Art · London · Science · Mores · Nature · Humour

The squirrel in women's portraits of early modern England and the spread of leprosy by rodents

In Early Modern England the squirrel symbolised prostitution, so this rodent in a woman's portrait augurs nothing good. Though it has recently been proved that squirrels also spread leprosy

A branch with oranges in front of a yellow stone church façade and a cobbled square.

NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

The Forbidden Fruit in Culture and Citrus Instead of the Apple in Renaissance Art

In our culture the forbidden fruit is personified by the apple, but with the masters of the Renaissance it is sometimes an orange or another citrus fruit. In any case, let me remind you: first the forbidden fruit, then the church, not the other way round!