NB! · Archive · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Dior Fertiliser: Pure Gold!

Dior Fertiliser: pure gold! An advertisement for the struggling chemical fertiliser business owned by Christian Dior's father. Who would have guessed that phosphates would one day yield so outstanding a designer?

NB! · Art · Museums · Nature · Humour

George Stubbs Captured the Cheetah's Escape

The cheetah's escape was captured by George Stubbs. True, the landscape does not look much like Berkshire, but the predator really did go about in a red cap and girdle. In 1970 the painting was bought at Sotheby's by the Manchester gallery

NB! · Aristocracy · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Someone here has said I do not look much like Sandro, but Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, standing between Maria Georgievna with Olga Alexandrovna and Xenia Alexandrovna with Mikhail Alexandrovich, does look quite like him?

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Mores · Humour

Do you know why the little spaniel wears pearl earrings?

Do you know why the little spaniel wears pearl earrings? Because he belongs to little Mademoiselle de Blois, the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV by the Marquise de Montespan. But in his eyes there is still a "dog's life"

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Humour

They say that when Chagall was in Moscow, he was so struck by the beauty of Levitan's canvases that he asked the Tretyakov Gallery to give him one landscape in exchange for all his own paintings

They say that when Chagall was in Moscow, he was so struck by the beauty of Levitan's canvases that he asked the Tretyakov Gallery to give him one landscape in exchange for all his own paintings. Fools, they should have agreed!

Wax model of a male torso with open chest and abdomen, a sabre inserted through the mouth, showing the lungs, heart and intestines.

NB! · Museums · Science · Humour

Sword swallower model by Rudolf Pohl at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, 1900

The sword-swallower of the healthy man. German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, a medical model by Rudolf Pohl showing what it means to 'go too far', 1900

NB! · Archive · Books · Observations · Mores · Humour

My New Hobby: Jewish Cuisine of Many Lands

My new hobby is Jewish cuisine of many lands. At the back of the 1907 volume 'Choice Dinners and Dishes for the Jewish Family' I found an advertisement for a book for young Orthodox housekeepers. I want it, I cannot have it 💔

NB! · The East · Books · Society · Humour

A Mother Goose Rhyme for Jewish Children

A Mother Goose rhyme for Jewish children. A kitten visited Palestine in 1945 and saw camels and donkeys. In Israel in 1966 it saw an agrarian revival and industrialisation. Geopolitics for toddlers!

Art · Books · Humour

Linor Goralik wrote that in one Soviet album the painting was titled "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash"

Linor Goralik wrote that in one Soviet album the painting was titled "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash". As they say, the subtleties of translation!

NB! · Art · Humour

The Dachshund Hurries

The dachshund is in a hurry. 1912, a painting by Giacomo Balla, one of the authors of the manifesto of Italian Futurism: "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash". Oil on canvas.

NB! · Art · Books · Observations · Humour

I Feel Like the Owl in the Portrait of the Scottish Writer and One-Hit Wonder James Boswell

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · People · Humour

This is no Kirkorov of the eighteenth century, but the Irish politician Charles Coote, Earl of Bellomont, in the regalia of a Knight of the Order of the Bath: a mantle of crimson velvet, a hat with an ostrich plume and a gold chain weighing a kilogram