NB! · Moscow · Museums · Ethnography · Humour

The clothing of Alaska's indigenous peoples, made from fox, bear and reindeer skins, or the typical attire of Muscovites in the coming days

Aristocracy · Art · Mores · Humour

The ladder of women's titles in the 18th century, from mistress to duchess

Girls of the eighteenth century chase after titles. At the very bottom of the ladder lies an ordinary mistress with her bosom bared, unable to rise; one rung above her is a baronet's wife, who has been overtaken by a baroness, above whom looms a viscountess, and higher

Icon on a gold ground: Charles I in a lace collar holds a crown on his palm and a cross in the other hand, inscribed Carolus I Martyr.

NB! · Faith · Monarchies · People · Humour

Icon of Saint Charles I the Martyr, executed as a tyrant and traitor

Saint Charles the Martyr, executed as a tyrant, traitor and enemy of his country. Do pass this on to Poklonskaya, in case things don't work out for her with Nicholas II

Museums · Society · Saint Petersburg · Humour

Putin: Come to Mikhail Borisovich [Piotrovsky, Director of the Hermitage] with a rifle, and he still won't hand over certain things

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

How exalted young ladies from well-to-do families present themselves vs how they look in reality.

NB! · Observations · Humour

The moment when one regrets that turbans went out of fashion

Black-and-white cartoon of two women in crinolines talking by a doorway in the rain, with a La Traviata poster on the wall and the caption The Great Social Evil.

NB! · Archive · London · Mores · Humour

Cartoon “The Great Social Evil” and the meaning of the word gay in 19th-century England

Ah, Fanny! How long have you been gay? In nineteenth-century England the word "gay" was used of those working in the sex trade. In the background is a poster for La Traviata, an opera about a courtesan, for the especially slow on the uptake

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Cinema · Pop Culture · Humour

Mr Bean in William Hogarth's "The Toilette" of 1743

Mr Bean in William Hogarth's "The Toilette" of 1743. The acknowledged master of irony at the expense of the English aristocracy could hardly have imagined that his picture would still be raising a laugh more than 200 years later

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Humour

Donald Trump, a fragment of stucco decoration in the late Gothic Jerónimos Monastery near Lisbon, sixteenth century

NB! · Mores · Humour

⚡️Important⚡️ The False-Rump Shop Has Been Deceiving Men Since 1785

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Though, you know, looking at this Ganymede, for instance, only one thought comes to mind: he did go and find himself some adventures to sit on

Marble relief on a red wall: a large eagle bends toward a seated, half-naked youth who feeds it from a bowl.

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg · Humour

Relief in the Hermitage showing Ganymede feeding the eagle, the form Zeus took

Zeus stole the beautiful Ganymede by turning himself into an eagle. I do not know whether the youth is feeding the bird on this bas-relief from the Hermitage before the abduction or after it, but I think you will have understood what a vile, lecherous beast this Zeus was