Observations · Mores · People · Humour

Ralph Lincoln and his kinship with Abraham Lincoln through Mordecai Lincoln

Ralph Lincoln likes to stress his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln and even wears an old-fashioned suit and a top hat in the manner of the famous Lincolnian image. A public figure and speaker on American history, above all on the biography of the 16th President of the United States,

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Wikipedia quotes a very vivid recollection of the People's Artist Isaak Brodsky by Korney Chukovsky, who met him in 1926 to talk about his teacher Ilya Repin: “…Ah, how sumptuously he lives — and how tediously! Already in the hall hang portraits and littl

Wikipedia quotes a very vivid recollection of the People's Artist Isaak Brodsky by Korney Chukovsky, who met him in 1926 to talk about his teacher Ilya Repin: “…Ah, how sumptuously he lives — and how tediously! Already in the hall hang portraits and little portraits of Lenin, fabricated by

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There is a recollection by Vyacheslav Molotov of how, and how much, he was paid in the years of his political activity

There is a recollection by Vyacheslav Molotov of how, and how much, he was paid in the years of his political activity. The account was taken down in the 1970s, when Molotov was already past eighty, from his own words by the Soviet writer Feliks Chuev, and published in the

Black and white engraving of a woman reclining with a pipe in a glass-sided hearse drawn by a horse, with the driver on the box.

NB! · Archive · Mores · Pop Culture · Humour

An 1871 engraving shows a Quebec woman riding in a hearse along St. John Street with a pipe

A woman from Quebec caused a sensation by driving down Saint John Street in a hearse, reclining where the coffin should be and smoking a pipe». Greetings to Ksenia Sobchak from 1871

Aristocracy · Mores · Paris · Humour

When the Duke of Vendôme accused Marshal de Bassompierre of plotting against Richelieu, hinting at the marshal's secret marriage to the sister of the Duke of Guise with the words "You will doubtless take the side of Monsieur de Guise, because you kiss his

When the Duke of Vendôme accused Marshal de Bassompierre of plotting against Richelieu, hinting at the marshal's secret marriage to the sister of the Duke of Guise with the words "You will doubtless take the side of Monsieur de Guise, because you kiss his sister, Madame de

NB! · Observations · Mores · Pop Culture

Ideas for New Year hairstyles: my gift to you

On the poster a man pushes against a door behind which a ghostly figure stands, while a woman, a nurse and a girl stand behind him beneath a wreath.

NB! · Archive · Mores · Society

Christmas poster of 1918 urging people to wear a mask and wash their hands

Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep a safe distance. Christmas poster, 1918

Art · Mores

In time, Gerard ter Borch's 1654 painting Gallant Conversation came to be called Paternal Admonition less and less often

In time, the 1654 painting Gallant Conversation by Gerard ter Borch, that master of the chronicle of ordinary burghers' lives, came to be called Paternal Admonition less and less often. Perhaps because of the coin in the man's hand. At first the subject was read as a

Books · Observations · Mores · Society

US Civil War veterans' pensions were paid to widows and a daughter until 2020

I remember reading in a book about the American Civil War (1861-1865) that the state went on paying war pensions right up to the 1960s. Not a bad lag of a hundred years. But quite recently, in another book, written in the 1990s, I came across an interview with

Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Mores · Education · Ethnography

Shorts in English dress since the 16th century and the habit of wearing them in winter

A snowy day, Ronald Lampitt. One can go endlessly goose-pimpled watching Englishmen, certain continental Europeans and Americans stroll about in shorts in winter. Some will write it off as plain folly, others will recall ancient traditions, still others will put the wardrobe at odds with the weather down to

Observations · Mores · Society · Humour

Convertible sofa of the 18th century at La Motte-Tilly and Soviet folding sofas

There was once a text about the Soviet passion for sofa-beds, which still haunts the hapless tenants of flats where a single room finds itself holding a bed, a sofa-bed and an armchair-bed, all against the backdrop of a carpet. For some reason there is a special

Aristocracy · Archive · Museums · Mores · People

Marchioness Arconati-Visconti refurbished Gaasbeek Castle and gave it to the Netherlands

Nothing special, just the elderly Marchesa Maria Arconati-Visconti playing a bored Renaissance page at home, in the Dutch castle of Gaasbeek. A great eccentric even in her youth, in her declining years the Marchesa Arconati-Visconti devoted herself to decorating and refurbishing a castle in the Southern Netherlands, which