NB! · Books · People · Humour

The Dadaist Poet Emmy Hennings (1885-1948), or Was She Really Dunya Smirnova?

NB! · Society · Humour

The Portrait Gazes Upon ITS FORMIDABLE PROGENITRIX

The Portrait Gazes Upon ITS FORMIDABLE PROGENITRIX. If you still harboured any hopes for the future of Russian journalism

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Since it is such a feast, I have some ceramic olives for you too

Faience eggs, whole and cut, with orange yolks lie on a dish with a blue ornamental border.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Faience eggs of the 18th century, whole and cut, on a dish with a blue border

Are you fond of eggs? And of faience ones? The eighteenth century: a love for all seasons

NB! · Science · Mores · Humour

In the seventeenth century, dissection tables with a rotating top became especially popular: they allowed the corpse to be turned towards the sun, a great advantage in the absence of good lighting

NB! · Art · Society · People · Humour

Sir William Young owned West Indian estates and 1,300 slaves, was an outspoken opponent of Wilberforce's 1789 campaign for abolition, and in the end richly deserved his drubbing

London · Science · People · Humour

The distinguished English surgeon John Hunter, the prototype of Doctor Dolittle, made a considerable contribution to the development of medicine, but also committed several errors that misled physicians of several subsequent generations, who did not…

The distinguished English surgeon John Hunter, the prototype of Doctor Dolittle, made a considerable contribution to the development of medicine, but also committed several errors that misled physicians of several subsequent generations, who did not dare to argue with so authoritative a researcher. For example, he believed that gonorrhoea and

Painting of a preacher in a pulpit, a clerk with clasped hands below, and a sleeping woman in a red dress.

NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Hogarth's “The Sleeping Congregation” of 1728, with a preacher resembling Desaguliers

The Sleeping Congregation, 1728. Hogarth. It is very Hogarthian that the man in the pulpit looks like the celebrated natural philosopher, propagandist of Newtonian theories and freemason John Theophilus Desaguliers. And the flock is asleep

A family in a cart drawn by a white horse on a park road, with a black dog beneath the cart and a small dog in the distance.

NB! · Art · Humour

Family outing with dogs in a 1908 painting by Henri Rousseau

If you are going on holiday with the whole family, don't forget to bring your beloved little dog and her puppy. Henri Rousseau, 1908

A small pale figurine of Baubo with a tuft of hair on its head stands on a wooden shelf against a dark background.

NB! · Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Humour

Figurine of the ancient Greek Baubo in Freud's study

The aged ancient Greek libertine Baubo in Freud's consulting room. Nicely settled in

Two terracotta figurines of Baubo on white stands in a museum display, the left one wearing a headdress, the right one with a large top piece.

NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Ethnography · Humour

Terracotta figurines of Baubo, who made the grieving Demeter laugh

Figurines of Baubo, the old woman who made the goddess Demeter laugh in her grief for her daughter by lifting her skirts and displaying her nether parts. There were Baubos in the old days!

NB! · Archive · Art · Monarchies · Humour

13 June 1803: Britain Resumes Hostilities against France

13 June 1803: Britain resumed hostilities against France. The full-bodied Britannia lashes Napoleon's bloodied backside: take this and that, and be warned, provoke me no more