Archive · Art · Monarchies · Mores

Presumed design for a mirror commissioned by Alexander I from the jeweller Odiot

"A Dressing Table, Comprising a Gilt Mirror Whose Crown Is the Toilette of Venus" This is believed to be a design for the decorative part of a precious mirror commissioned from the French goldsmith Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot by Tsar Alexander I himself for his mistress between 1815

NB! · Monarchies · Moscow · Museums

Vladimir Putin and the Diamond Cap of Peter I Alexeyevich

Books · Monarchies · People

Napoleon's death in exile on 5 May 1821 and Chateaubriand's response

5 May 1821, 203 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile. He himself used to say that “Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day.” Many rejoiced, many mourned, and almost all agreed that one of the makers of history had departed. Chateaubriand

NB! · London · Monarchies

Today marks a year since the coronation of the new King of England, Charles III

Oval engraving with profiles of Alexander I, Paul I and Catherine II, Berlin, 1814.

Archive · Books · Monarchies

A book on how Europe turned its gaze to Russia during Napoleon's threat

A triple portrait of Catherine II, Paul I and Alexander I from the German book of 1815, "The Glorious Self-Sacrifice of Russia for the Salvation of Mankind" The book tells how all Europe turned its gaze northwards at the moment of greatest peril from Napoleon to every

Art · Monarchies · People

Table medal commemorating the death of Emperor Alexander I the Blessed, who reposed in God on 19 November 1825

The reverse bears the inscription: Our Angel in Heaven 1812. On the obverse, around the bust of the Emperor in a laurel wreath, a serpent bites its own tail.

Art · Monarchies · Mores · Paris · People · Humour

The Marquise de Montespan as Judith, Thriftily Holding On to the Severed Head of Holofernes

Once more, for the record: the Marquise de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV and mother of seven of his children, in the guise of the Old Testament heroine Judith, the young widow who saved besieged Judea by cutting off the head of Nebuchadnezzar's general Holofernes, whom she had

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Mores · Paris

Engraving of the masked ball of 23 January 1782, given by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in honour of the birth of Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, their eldest son, born after 11 years of marriage

Engraving of the masked ball of 23 January 1782, given by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in honour of the birth of Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, their eldest son, born after 11 years of marriage. Louis Joseph was a sickly child and lived only 7 years, dying of tuberculosis

NB! · Archive · Monarchies

Elizabeth II, Charles III and Princess Anne at Balmoral Castle in 1952

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Observations · Saint Petersburg

Incorrect date of Peter and Catherine's marriage in Gerakov's 1807 book

I have found a most ludicrous discrepancy in the text of Gavriil Gerakov's book "Memorable Events in Russian History from the Birth of Peter the Great to His Death" Gerakov writes that Peter married Catherine (Alexeyevna, that is, Marta) of the Skavronsky family in May 1707,

NB! · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Know anyone as much like Caligula as Joffrey Baratheon?

Architecture · Faith · Monarchies · Rome

The Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome and the rain episode as described by Cassius Dio

The Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. Erected in 193 in honour of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius's victory in the Marcomannic War. The marble column itself stands 29.6 m tall, and its pedestal 10 m; the original height of the monument was almost 42 metres, and for