NB! · Art · Nature · Humour

No GMOs!

No GMOs! These very large, almost rectangular cows from English paintings of the nineteenth century probably belong to the Limousin beef breed, which was then new

Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums

Ostroukhov's study of a horse, taken for a Velázquez, proved to be by Van Dyck

Ilya Ostroukhov, former director of the Tretyakov Gallery, acquired in the 1920s an unusual study of a bored horse for his collection, having swapped it for a study of Menippus. Ostroukhov was immensely proud of his purchase, believing he had secured so original a Velázquez for his private collection, until

Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Before you are two remarkably similar portraits

Before you are two remarkably similar portraits. The one in colour shows Charles II, King of England; the second, the English aristocrat and politician Charles Boyle. Evidently, Boyle commissioned an exact copy of the king's portrait, with his own head fitted on to it. The clothes, the pose,

A miniature black coffin with a carved bone lid, and an open coffin with a bone skeleton against red lining.

NB! · Art · London · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Miniature early 19th century coffin with skeleton sold at Sotheby's for £3,000

At Sotheby's this 15-centimetre memento mori souvenir from the kit of an early nineteenth-century English soldier sold for £3,000. A thoroughly disagreeable trinket, but there is no disputing about historical tastes..

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · People · Humour

Here is a muscleman: Henry of Navarre as Hercules, victor over the Lernaean Hydra

Here is a muscleman: Henry of Navarre as Hercules, victor over the Lernaean Hydra. The portrait clearly flatters the figure of the founder of the Bourbon dynasty, but it recalls the comical genealogy of the House of Navarre, traced from a son of Hercules

Close-up of a bronze statue showing the back, buttocks and thigh of a nude male figure, with drapery folds on the left.

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Paris · Humour

Nude Henry IV as Jupiter in a sculpture at the Louvre

The Louvre holds a sculpture of a naked Henry IV in the guise of Jupiter. Thanks to the statue, we can learn that the monarch had a well-toned behind, while from the front there is, frankly, nothing to look at

Art · Museums · Mores

1650s embroidery with a swastika in the 17th-century needlework collection at Montacute House

Montacute House (near Yeovil in the south of England), famed for its outstanding collection of Tudor and Stuart portraits, also displays a fantastic collection of seventeenth-century needlework. Among the exhibits is an unexpected embroidery of the 1650s bearing a swastika. The sign is often found in the applied art

NB! · Art · Museums · Ethnography

Just a Seventeenth-Century Embroidery in the Shape of a Swastika

Still life with a lidded clay jug, a pewter plate of stacked waffles, a plate of butter, an apple, a bread roll and a glass on a stone table.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

German school still life of the early 17th century with waffles, beer, butter, an apple and a bread roll

German School. An abundant, even sumptuous table by the standards of the 1600s. Beer, butter, an apple, a bread roll, salt and plenty of wafers. Tell me, does anyone really need much more for happiness?

NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

To People of the Eighteenth Century, John Collet's Drawing Was More Familiar in This Colour

To people of the eighteenth century, John Collet's drawing was more familiar in this colour. Miss Trigger, as you can see, tramples femininity underfoot

Colour print of a lady in a yellow dress with a cricket bat and a lady in a dark coat with a gun and game bird, with dogs beside them.