Black-and-white print: two frightened ladies with tall coiffures and ostrich plumes flee from an ostrich while a dog barks beside them.

NB! · Art · Mores · Nature · Humour

Ostriches attack ladies in feathered hats in an engraving of 1777

Enraged ostriches attack fashionable ladies in extravagant hats trimmed with ostrich feathers. Avian revenge, 1777

Art · London · Museums · Observations · Science · Humour

To everyone who fears dentists as much as I do, or perhaps even more, I recommend pondering the simple subject of this sculpture of 1601 from the storerooms of the Science Museum in London

To everyone who fears dentists as much as I do, or perhaps even more, I recommend pondering the simple subject of this sculpture of 1601 from the storerooms of the Science Museum in London. In those days the extraction of teeth was an exceedingly painful operation, conducted almost without anaesthetic:

NB! · Monarchies · Paris · Pop Culture · Humour

The image of a bee on clothing is a registered Gucci trademark, but beetles were already embroidered on the curtains of Napoleon's library at Saint-Cloud

NB! · Observations · Humour

Don't even think of inviting me unless your party looks like this

Aristocracy · Art · Museums · Mores · Humour

Dressed for the Weather

Sabina Poppaea, unknown artist of the School of Fontainebleau, 1550–1570, Museum of Art and History, Geneva. Tacitus wrote that the Empress Poppaea, wife of Nero, drew the attention of the Romans by strolling about naked, wrapped only in a gauze veil, as women of easy virtue commonly went. This

NB! · Society · Humour

Russians Find Out When Things Will Be Fine

NB! · Society · Humour

During the Direct Line, the Only Means of Genuinely Improving the Lives of Ordinary People Has Been Found

A damaged silver bust with wavy hair and a deformed face stands on a transparent base against a background of architectural plans.

Archaeology · Museums · Humour

Silver Bust of Livia and Bronze Figure of the God Bes from Herculaneum

"You look fantastic!" "Thanks, so do you" A silver bust identified as Livia, and the Egyptian bronze god Bes. Finds from Herculaneum

Science · Mores · People · Humour

Anecdote about the mineralogist Alexander Ushakov, who as a juror acquitted every defendant

There is an anecdote about the nineteenth-century Russian writer and mineralogist Alexander Pavlovich Ushakov. Ushakov was the kindest of men, wrote several important works on mineralogy and was reputed a connoisseur of the stage and the ballet. But he held rather original principles, calling idiots all who did not

Art · Observations · Humour

Marcantonio Raimondi, 1510

Marcantonio Raimondi, 1510. The Judgement of Paris, detail. Édouard Manet, 1863. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. Raimondi was known as Raphael's official engraver, and here he reproduces a lost work of the master. In due course the arrangement of the figures in this mise-en-scène would

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Napoleon's letters to Josephine written on campaign and the impression of their emotional tone

"Ah, you naughty girl! How could you write such a letter! How cold it is! My soul is sad! My heart melts, and my imagination simply frightens me. You love me less strongly. A day will come when you will cease to love me altogether." I have been

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Oskar Kokoschka, Theseus and Antiope

Oskar Kokoschka, Theseus and Antiope. Or the old guard of society ladies against the Instagrammers