Archive · The East · Art · Saint Petersburg

Japanese sailors of the Wakamiya-maru in Russia and their return with the embassy of 1805

The Bronze Horseman as Seen by Japanese Sailors Who Found Themselves in Russia in 1794. The illustration is found in the 11th scroll of the Japanese manuscript "Kankai ibun", or "Strange Tidings of the Seas Surrounding [the Earth]", compiled from the interrogations of sailors who were

Autumn mountain landscape with a river in the valley, bare trees and herdsmen driving cattle down a slope under dark clouds.

Art · Museums

Pieter Bruegel's “The Return of the Herd” of 1565 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna collection

The Return of the Herd. Autumn. Pieter Bruegel, 1565. Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

NB! · The East · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

I dream of a hat like the one worn by Ivan Palaiologos in the fresco in the Medici Palace

Faith · Art · Observations

A counting rhyme about the apostles and a miscount over Simon Peter

As a child I had a counting-out rhyme for memorising the apostles, but something in it troubled me: however I recited it, the count never came out right, and I kept ending up with 13 men. In time I even resigned myself to this, supposing that the odd man

Round engraving labelled DECEMBER: a pig carcass is butchered on a table by a barn, with a village, a tower, a windmill on a hill and a goat sign above.

NB! · Art · Ethnography

Engraving “December” by Adriaen Collaert after Hans Bol, Antwerp, 1580s

December. Engraving by Adriaen Collaert after a drawing by Hans Bol, Antwerp, 1580s.

Coming Up · Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums · Heritage

Ilya Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581" returns to the permanent display of the Tretyakov Gallery, where an exhibition devoted to its large-scale restoration will open

The project is called "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. The Return". The display will include, among other things, studies and sketches reflecting the artist's long search for the composition, the types and the historical details. Archive documents will show the chronicle of the first

NB! · Art · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Not an advert for Barbour, but Caspar David Friedrich, no less

NB! · Faith · Art

Saint Anne, Leonardo da Vinci, 1501

Art · London · Science

At Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in London, the top lot was Sandro Botticelli’s "Madonna and Child Enthroned"

At Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in London, the top lot was the painting "Madonna and Child Enthroned" by Sandro Botticelli. The picture sold for £10.9 million, more than four times its estimate, becoming the fifth most expensive work by Botticelli ever sold at auction. The work

Faith · Art · Monarchies · People · Saint Petersburg

Brullov depicted Princess Alexandra Nikolayevna in the guise of Saint Alexandra

"Saint Tsaritsa Alexandra Ascending to Heaven", Karl Bryullov, 1845. Clad in a golden silk gown and an ermine mantle, the picture shows Grand Duchess Alexandra (1825-1844), the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a beauty and the darling of all. Alexandra Nikolayevna appears before us in an

Art · Books · Mores

In the hearts of men I have noticed a chill, no small one; of loving ardour I have long seen none among the Berendeys

In the hearts of men I have noticed a chill, No small one; of loving ardour I have long seen none among the Berendeys. The service of beauty has vanished from them; In the young I do not see glances Moistened with bewitching passion; I do not see pensive maidens,

Coming Up · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Exhibition to include paintings, porcelain, furniture and panels from Lomonosov's Ust-Ruditsa factory

Tomorrow the State Hermitage will open new halls of its permanent display “The Gallery of Peter the Great”, devoted to the era of the Empresses Anna Ioannovna and Elizabeth Petrovna and to the development of Russian art and culture during their reigns. The display includes paintings, jewellery, porcelain, smalt and