A pair of pointed shoes with pale uppers crossed by black bands, on a smooth wooden surface.

NB! · Museums · Pop Culture · Humour

Eighteenth-century footwear combining silk and leather in its trim

Silk loafers with leather inserts, or leather sandals overlaid with silk appliqué? Eighteenth-century fashion, do stop

NB! · Museums · Paris · Humour

Incidentally, a dollhouse has turned up for Poklonskaya too, in the Museum of Art and History in Saint-Denis

Monarchies · Moscow · Museums · Observations

This, by the way, is no legend: the saddle really was presented to Sheremetev by Peter I

This, by the way, is no legend: the saddle really was presented to Sheremetev by Peter I. I saw it with my own eyes at the 2009 exhibition in the Kremlin, marking the 300th anniversary of the Great Northern War and the Battle of Poltava. I remember it as if

Seated stone statue of a bearded man in a cap with large eyes, his robe covered in cuneiform, with a display case of pottery behind.

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Art · Museums · Observations · Humour

Statue of Idrimi, King of Alalakh, with an autobiographical inscription on his robe

King Idrimi of Alalakh has been extremely tense for 3,500 years, as though disturbed at an inconvenient moment. And his face seems to say more than the autobiographical text inscribed across his robe

NB! · Monarchies · Museums · People

The cradle of Henry IV rests upon the blue royal standard of the Bourbons; it served as a travelling cot for the heir, whom his grandfather, Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre, took with him on hunts and long rides

NB! · Monarchies · Museums · Mores

A cradle made from a tortoise shell beneath the banners of Navarre and the Bourbons: the cradle of the heir of Navarre, who would become the first King of France of the Bourbon dynasty, as Henry IV

Museums · Observations · Ethnography

The existing nábrók is probably a modern reconstruction, with little evidence for the original

Returning to the nábrók, NB: the surviving specimen is most likely a modern fabrication, merely reconstructing the legend. They are kept in a private museum, and since it is thanks to them that we learnt of it at all, they evidently do their work tolerably well. Evidence for the trousers

Museums · Ethnography · Humour

Magic trousers of human skin called naubrouki, and the rules for making and passing them on

In Iceland, at least until the seventeenth century, a man eager to grow rich could make himself a pair of magic trousers for the purpose. First, one had to ask a man for permission to make trousers from his skin. When he died, one had to dig up his corpse,

NB! · Faith · Museums · Ethnography

This alarming exhibit from the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft is a nábrók, ritual underwear made from the skin of a corpse, worn to attract great wealth

Four carved ivory chairs around an octagonal inlaid table in a museum display, with visitors reflected in the glass.

NB! · The East · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Humour

Ivory furniture set given by Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan at the Salar Jung Museum

An ivory suite presented by Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Indian state of Mysore, is on display in the Salar Jung Museum, India's largest art museum. A question: why carry sand to the beach?

NB! · Art · Museums · Mores · Humour

How to Cook a Pig?

How to cook a pig? Mid-1st century AD, National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where photography is forbidden 😁

NB! · Art · Museums · Nature · Humour

George Stubbs Captured the Cheetah's Escape

The cheetah's escape was captured by George Stubbs. True, the landscape does not look much like Berkshire, but the predator really did go about in a red cap and girdle. In 1970 the painting was bought at Sotheby's by the Manchester gallery