Archaeology · Cinema · Museums · Ethnography

In Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" there is an episode in which Sophie Hatter, whose enchantment is almost undone, gives her plait to the demon Calcifer so that he may revive after the Witch of the Waste has all but snuffed him out, and the demon acquir

In Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" there is an episode in which Sophie Hatter, whose enchantment is almost undone, gives her plait to the demon Calcifer so that he may revive after the Witch of the Waste has all but snuffed him out, and the

NB! · Architecture · Art · Museums · Paris

A Degas drawing "At the Paris Opera" and those very private partitions in the auditorium of the Paris Opera, on a model of the building in the Musée d'Orsay

Faith · Art · Museums · Heritage · Humour

Yorkshire Museum buys 13th-century Limoges crucifix from St Mary's Abbey at auction

When You've Already Been Crucified, but Your Supervisor Still Asks About Your VAK Publications. Some good news: a remarkable medieval crucifix of copper alloy, the work of Limoges craftsmen, has returned to York, where it was long kept at St Mary's Abbey, now no more. The

Archaeology · Museums · Observations · Humour

Bronze finial of a Roman standard with an eagle in the Zagreb Archaeological Museum

Things like this take me back to the days of Asterix and Obelix, that is, to when they were shown on Saturdays at 9 a.m. Part of a Roman standard: a bronze finial in the form of an eagle resembling a plump goose, perched astride a baton, with a

NB! · Monarchies · Museums · Paris

The boots Napoleon wore during his years on the island of Saint Helena, in the Drouot pavilion at the Paris Biennale

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Mores · Ethnography

Etruscan paired funerary urn of the 500s BC and the place of women at the banquet

One of many paired Etruscan funerary urns, 500s BC. It is generally held that the spouses depicted are sharing a meal. The wife may be passing her husband an aromatic liquid, perfume or oil, while in her left hand she holds a pomegranate, the symbol of immortality. Hm. Two on

Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums

Collector Shchukin acquired 37 paintings by Matisse over seven years of acquaintance

The calling card of the Shchukin collection: Henri Matisse's Dance. Matisse's canvases occupy a special place in Shchukin's collection, just as the artist himself does in the life of the collector. As for Shchukin's place in the life of Matisse, the reformer

Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · People · Saint Petersburg

Sergey Shchukin's Collection of French Painting in the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum

Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso: Sergey Ivanovich Shchukin devoted 20 years of his life to acquiring paintings from the finest French artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Fauves cost the merchant 1 million francs; today its value is estimated at

Moscow · Museums · Observations · Education

I am greatly impressed that the main building of RSUH on Miusskaya Square has opened a museum-workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, with models of his inventions that one may not merely touch but test: every mechanism is in working order…

I am greatly impressed that the main building of RSUH on Miusskaya Square has opened a museum-workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, with models of his inventions that one may not merely touch but test: every mechanism is in working order, except, of course, the bombard on a worm gear

Archaeology · Museums · Mores

Roman amphora from southern Spain labelled as holding young tuna aged two years

This is what a tin can looked like in Ancient Rome. This clay amphora of AD 70-100, for instance, states that it contains young tuna, matured for two years. The amphora is known to have been packed in the south of Spain. What sort of fish is matured for

A small figure of a mammoth with thick reddish fur and long curved tusks on a wooden shelf next to a pencil.

NB! · London · Museums · Observations · Palaeontology · Humour

Miniature mammoth from the Natural History Museum in London

Good heavens, I am in love! Just look at this tiny mammoth from the Natural History Museum in London 😍😍

Moscow · Museums · Observations

Archery exhibition at GUM features handmade Soviet equipment

GUM is hosting a rather curious exhibition devoted to archery. What struck me was that many of the instruments on display, Soviet ones at any rate, are handmade. Native archers were left to fashion by cottage-industry methods the holders they needed, rulers for the brace height and the tiller,