NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Humour
They say that when Chagall was in Moscow, he was so struck by the beauty of Levitan's canvases that he asked the Tretyakov Gallery to give him one landscape in exchange for all his own paintings. Fools, they should have agreed!
NB! · Museums · Science · Humour
The sword-swallower of the healthy man. German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, a medical model by Rudolf Pohl showing what it means to 'go too far', 1900
NB! · Archaeology · The East · Museums
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Paris
In 1984, road builders in Jordan discovered Ain Ghazal, the largest Neolithic settlement yet found, which at its height, in the 8th millennium BC, was home to 3,000 people. The population of Jericho in the same period is estimated at around 2,000. Ain Ghazal also covered 15 hectares,
NB! · Art · Museums · Paris
NB! · Faith · Museums · Rome
A depiction of Mithras in the Baths of Diocletian, with a torch in one hand, a sword in the other and a Phrygian cap on his head. Among the Hellenes this cap was a symbol of freedom, as it was, incidentally, during the French Revolution.
NB! · Archive · Art · Moscow · Museums · Heritage
The Tretyakov Gallery has preserved a Chagall autograph. In the photograph he is seen with Furtseva and, in all likelihood, her daughter Svetlana Petrovna
Art · Moscow · Museums · People
In 1973, the 86-year-old Marc Chagall visited the Soviet Union for the first time. The visit was arranged by the Minister of Culture, Yekaterina Furtseva, who had been introduced to the artist in Paris. At the Tretyakov Gallery there opened what contemporaries described as a modest exhibition of
NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Nature · Humour
I wonder what plant it is that Cranach's Adam in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has on his nether parts? It looks like an epiphyte, something like an orchid. It would be amusing: in that case it is Eve who has plucked the flower, and not the other
Art · Museums
Opening a new weekly column. Today we shall visit the foremost art museum of Vienna, the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History), whose holdings are made up of several royal collections: those of Archduke Leopold, Emperor Rudolf II and Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Italians and the Dutch are the
NB! · Art · Monarchies · Museums
NB! · Museums · People · Saint Petersburg · Humour
This is the instrument Peter the Great used to keep the mouths of his patients open. Good morning