Listings · Moscow · Coming Up · Art · Museums

Regular feature: where to go — exhibitions worth visiting in Moscow this week

📌 Closing soon: “Alexander Deyneka. A Hymn to Life” at the Tretyakov Gallery, until 26 October 📌 Closing soon: “Ilya Mashkov. Avant-Garde. Kitsch. Classic” at the Tretyakov Gallery, until 26 October 📌 Closing soon: the exhibition of non-figurative painting and graphic art “Dialogues Without Words” at the Belyaevo Gallery, until 26

NB! · Aristocracy · Architecture · Faith · Art

Magnificent sculptures above the tomb of Louis de Brézé, husband of Diane de Poitiers, who died in 1531, in Rouen Cathedral

Aristocracy · The East · Art · Monarchies · Paris

Sotheby's sells Princess Niloufar Pahlavi's collection from her Paris mansion

Sotheby's has put up for sale the collections of the Iranian princess Niloufar Pahlavi, niece of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The collection was kept in a mansion in the French capital, decorated by the legendary Renzo Mongiardino in the late 1970s. Most of the works of art

Art · Paris · People

Auguste Rodin modelled a bust of Victor Hugo in 1883 without Hugo posing for him

"I am creating the image of a genius!" "Just don't forget to sign it, or everyone will think it's you" Rodin modelled his bust of Hugo without the sitter ever posing for him. For, as is well known, Hugo could not sit

Art · Observations · Paris · Society Pages

All week, everyone I know in Paris has been discussing Kirill Serebrennikov's premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet, where "Hamlet. Ghosts" was presented

All week, everyone I know in Paris has been discussing Kirill Serebrennikov's premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet, where "Hamlet. Ghosts" was presented, to a text by Serebrennikov about Hamlet in the context of world culture and modern history. The first thing that distinguishes the production

Architecture · Faith · Art

Filippo Lippi's last work, the frescoes of Spoleto Cathedral, where he is also buried

The frescoes of the Duomo in the Italian city of Spoleto are the last work of Filippo Lippi. They were executed on the commission of Cosimo de' Medici in 1466, together with Fra Diamante. The fresco of the Dormition of the Virgin is by Lippi; the other scenes in

Art · Books · Heritage · Paris

A Passage from Diderot’s “Rameau’s Nephew” and the History of His Paris Monument

When I see a virtuous man perishing in poverty while a scoundrel bathes in luxury, I ask myself: what have we done with this world? We devised laws to curb crime, yet those very laws protect the criminal, provided he is rich. We extol the truth, yet chase after falsehood,

Art · Observations · Humour

Temperaments in the Engravings of Virgil Solis, a German Renaissance Artist

Russian history is entertaining in that it alternates between epochs of sanguine and choleric temperaments. The former build churches, the latter tear them down, and the melancholics afterwards write: “This was inevitable.” The phlegmatics, for their part, rebind the manuscripts and calmly survive the change of dynasties. The temperaments in

NB! · Art · Books · Observations

An outstanding cover, I consider, for the 1981 edition of the Zadonshchina, designed by Ilya Glazunov

Art · Museums · Science · Saint Petersburg

AI Declares Caravaggio a Painting Long Thought to Be a Copy

There are three versions of the painting "The Lute Player". One is kept in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The second belongs to the collection of the Wildenstein family, the well-known French art dealers. The third was until recently considered a copy. In 1969 specialists from Sotheby&

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

I made a point of going up to the famous Seated Scribe to photograph his eyes: lined with kohl, with pale blue, seemingly glass pupils that are in fact made of quartz, magnesite and an alloy of copper and arsenic

The sculpture is believed to have been created between the Fourth (2543-2436 BC) and Fifth (2435-2306 BC) Dynasties, but the name we give the scribe is conventional, merely one of the versions; the owner of the tomb in which the sculpture was found in 1850 has so far

A winged archangel in armour raises a sword over a fallen dark demon against a golden background, holding scales in his other hand.

Faith · Art

Archangel Michael defeats a demon in a painting by Antonio de Comontes, around 1540

Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon. Antonio de Comontes, c. 1540