Aristocracy · Monarchies · Museums · Heritage

Pretium Laborum Non Vile: The Reward Is No Less Than the Deed. Ante ferit quam flamma micet: The Blow Falls Before the Flame Flashes. Non Aliud: I Desire No Other

These are the mottoes of one of the most prestigious and respected honours in Europe, the dynastic Order of the Golden Fleece, founded on 10 January 1430 by Philip the Good. In the portrait from the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts, the duke is shown wearing the Order of the

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

Zeus: a boy is seduced by an eagle, a girl by a swan

Zeus: a boy is seduced by an eagle, a girl by a swan. The main thing is not to get them mixed up. Museum of Fine Arts, Lisbon

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Mores

The Getty Museum acquired a 6th century BC kouros that proved a probable forgery

Before the New Year, a gripping tale for you of the eighties, an ancient statue and the Getty collection. At the close of 1983 the art dealer Gianfranco Becchina approached the Getty Museum in California with an offer to sell it a superbly preserved marble statue of the 6th century

A pale statue of a nude youth with long hair stands on an oval base in a museum gallery.

NB! · Art · Museums

Greek kouros statue of about the 6th century BC in the Getty Museum

Kouros. Greek sculpture, approximately 6th century BC, Getty Museum

In a museum display case stand four painted wooden figures: Christ with outstretched arms and three figures beside him.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Umbrian Deposition of the thirteenth century in the Louvre and its likeness to Russian northern carving

The Deposition from the Cross, second quarter of the 13th century, Umbria, Louvre. The three-dimensional, life-size figures of polychrome poplar, willow and walnut wood recall the church sculpture of the Russian North.

London · Museums · Science

Chair made in 1879 from the bed of surgeon John Hunter is kept in storage

The memorial chair made from the bed of the surgeon John Hunter is not on display in his museum but kept in storage. A plaque records that the chair was made on 22 September 1879 by Francis Buckland, and describes how Hunter's bed came into his hands: from

Museums · Science · Mores · Humour

Francis Buckland's armchair made from the hospital bed of John Hunter

Now you know what the bastard offspring of a stool and a four-poster looks like. This dreadful armchair is possibly one of the most preposterous and uncomfortable pieces of furniture I have ever had occasion to see. And yet so hideous a throne is not merely a monument to

Art · Madrid · Museums · Society · Nature

The Prado Museum and WWF show the effects of climate change in paintings by Velázquez and Goya

The Prado Museum and WWF have illustrated the consequences of climate change with great paintings from the museum's collection. Diego Velázquez's Philip IV is drowning, horse and all; Joachim Patinir's crossing to the underworld has run dry; Joaquín Sorolla's Children on the

Faith · Art · Madrid · Museums

Naples had an excellent school of carving not only in stone, but also in bone

Naples had an excellent school of carving not only in stone, but also in bone. And if the famous sculpture in the Sansevero Chapel showed a man struggling free from the net of vice, then the treasury of the National Archaeological Museum of Spain holds, for example, a 40-centimetre

A vessel of dark nut shell in gilded mounts, with a horn on top and a handle, on a white plinth in a museum display case.

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · New York

Vessel of Seychelles nut shell in gold mounts by Viennese masters of the 16th century at the Metropolitan Museum

Do you remember the cups of precious metals and exotic shells in the Kremlin Armoury? Well, the Metropolitan Museum holds a vessel made of a gold-mounted nut shell from the Seychelles, fashioned in the sixteenth century by Viennese craftsmen

Cinema · Books · Museums · Observations

The film “The King” about Henry V and the influence of Shakespearean clichés

Among the many films about the Middle Ages, The King is neither the most outstanding nor the most contentious, though its makers dusted the museum artefacts so zealously that they shook out a good part of the history. Credit where it is due: the picture has turned out handsome after

Monarchies · Museums · Heritage

The value of the treasures stolen from the Green Vault in Dresden is estimated at a billion dollars

The value of the treasures stolen from the Green Vault in Dresden is estimated at a billion dollars. Naturally, the stolen objects have no market price, but this is all the same one of the most audacious museum robberies of recent years. It has already been established that three sets