Page of a Dutch fashion magazine with engravings of black mourning dresses, hats, brooches, a fan and jewellery with crosses.

NB! · Archive · Mores · Pop Culture · Humour

Mourning dress and accessories in the Dutch fashion magazine De Gracieuse, April 1880

A selection of mourning dress and accessories in a Dutch fashion magazine, April 1880. After all, a widow must be not only merry but fashionable too

A book page with the English text of a dialogue between Electra and Clytemnestra about the infant Orestes.

Books · Observations · Mores · Humour

Dialogue of Clytemnestra and Electra about Orestes’s childhood, with a nod to Jung

Mothers in every age want obedience from their children and grandchildren from their obedience, and above all obedience in the matter of grandchildren. Forgive me for propping up my thesis with a quotation from Clytemnestra, that very mother, slain by her son Orestes at the instigation of his jealous sister

NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

Should you suddenly fancy a European tour of the sixteenth century, take along this aide-mémoire on how lace collars changed shape from decade to decade, so as not to mistake which decade you have landed in

Faith · Mores · Rome · Humour

Historians regard the story of Pope Joan and her exposure as fiction

You will of course know that most historians agree on the fictional character of the tale of a woman on the Papal throne, Pope Joan. Most likely, the myth was devised as an irony at the expense of the dominance of courtesans, kept women and concubines of every description in

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Science · Mores · Paris

Microscope of the Duke of Chaulnes, made around 1750 and sold in 2008 for 900,000 euros

In the drawing room of the antiquary Michel Meyer stood a microscope, an intriguing trinket, though many would call it heaven knows what, neither the most decorative nor the most useful item in the furnishings. Good for propping up books, perhaps, or weighing down the sauerkraut? Yet this microscope dates

Art · Mores · Humour

Proverb about futile effort on one panel of Pieter Bruegel’s cycle “12 Proverbs”

Pieter Bruegel has a cycle of “Twelve Proverbs”. On one of the panels we see what appears to be a soak pissing at the moon. The inscription reads: “I never get what I want, I always piss at the moon.” The expression means “to waste time on futile efforts”. The

Aristocracy · Cinema · Observations · Mores · Humour

The Duke of Bedford opened Woburn Abbey to the public with help from his wife Nicole

Supper at the Duchess of Bedford's. A familiar situation? When the hosts want a sumptuous table but have no wish to spend much on provisions, the richer service is brought out, and a few tomatoes and a mound of dried apricots are set in the middle of the

Faith · Books · Mores

When men strive together with one another, and the wife of one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand; thine eye shall no

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Books · Observations · Mores

The Russian actress Elena Nikolayevna Gogoleva (1900-1993) left a recollection of another Russian actress, the great Maria Nikolayevna Yermolova (1853-1928), dating from the second half of the 1920s:

"I had no scenes directly with Marya Nikolayevna, but all the same I was in the same picture as her. And here is what is interesting: Marya Nikolayevna, always so attentive, so courteous, so kind... you understand, here, when I ran off the stage and had not met her

NB! · Mores · Paris · People

Jean Cocteau in the tiny flat above the Palais-Royal gallery, where he lived with his beloved Jean Marais and three cats

NB! · Monarchies · Mores · Society Pages · Ethnography

Quite possibly the best view of the magnificent gold embroidery with the heraldic eagle on the train of the wedding dress of Victoria Romanovna, now Romanova

Quite possibly the best view of the magnificent gold embroidery with the heraldic eagle on the train of the wedding dress of Victoria Romanovna, now Romanova. It is the work of the atelier of Sergio Marcone; the design, it is said, is by Elina Samarina

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

If we are speaking of dynastic weddings, then as regards the very recent marriage of another Romanov descendant, Prince Rostislav, of the line of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, youngest son of Emperor Nicholas I…

The Nobility Assembly reports that it is troubled by invitations sent out in the names of the couple, in which Prince Rostislav Romanov is styled Son Altesse Impériale (His Imperial Highness). The nobles are sounding the alarm: the prince possesses no such title! The letter of 6 September runs roughly