Art · Cinema · Museums · Pop Culture · Humour

Works by Vasnetsov, Bryullov and Repin in Dumbledore's Office at Hogwarts

As everyone knows, the portraits of Hogwarts' former headmasters, famous wizards and other eminent figures of the magical world hang in Dumbledore's office. But look closely, and among these sorcerers you will find Ivan the Terrible, as painted by Vasnetsov. Nor is that the only discovery the

Art · Moscow · Museums · Ethnography

Portrait of Surikov's niece Tatyana Domozhilova in a mosquito net, 1891

In the Surikov Room (Room 28) of the Tretyakov Gallery, a small portrait of a woman in an unusual headdress catches the eye; it turns out to be not a veil but a mosquito net. It is a portrait of Surikov's niece Tatyana Kapitonovna Domozhilova in traditional Siberian

Art · Museums · Ethnography

"English iron is vile, but having the means to make it cheaper, they undercut us everywhere" - in 1818 the industrialist Nikolay Nikitich Demidov complains of cheap English iron, which had shaken the international standing of a trade that was, admittedly,

Yet this very thing became one of the reasons for the intensive development of the iron trades. Do you have a handsome painted lacquer tray at home? Such ware was once an indispensable and costly part of any interior. Russian decorative iron trays, salt cellars, caskets and chests replaced artistic

Art · Moscow · Museums · Mores · Ethnography

The Dowry in Old Russia and Pukirev’s “Accepting the Dowry by Inventory”

The Reception of the Dowry According to the Inventory, Vasily Pukirev, 1873. Collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. The bride is not easy to find in this picture: all the attention is on the things. The dowry, a word still heard in our grandmothers' vocabulary, had in the old days

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Drifting into the weekend with Gustave Caillebotte, acquired not long ago by the Musée d'Orsay for 3 million euros with the help of Bernard Arnault, who added a further 40 million from his company's coffers

The apostle Thomas touches the wound in Christ's side while three other apostles look on, one of them an elderly man in glasses.

Faith · Art · Museums

Hendrick ter Brugghen painted “The Incredulity of Thomas” in 1622, now in the Rijksmuseum

Doubting Thomas. 1622. And he has brought witnesses, one of them even in spectacles. Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588-1629), Rijksmuseum collection

Faith · Monarchies · Museums · Science

Walking mechanical monk of the 16th century in the Smithsonian collection

The Getty research and education project tells the story of this unique artefact, created at the meeting point of science, art and religion. An almost supernatural automaton, 40 centimetres tall and 450 years old, in the form of a monk. The walking, gesticulating wooden figure belongs to the collection of

Marble stele with a relief of a nude youth playing with a ball, a young servant beside him and a column on the right.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums

Ancient Greek funerary stele of the 5th–4th century BC from Piraeus showing a youth playing with a ball

Funerary stele depicting a naked young man playing with a ball. Beside him stands a boy-servant holding bathing implements. Ancient Greece. 5th-4th centuries BC, Piraeus. National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Jan Fabre's "Folly Standing on Death", 2016, and Frans Snyders's "Concert of the Birds", 1630-1640

The birds did not believe the owl, which warned them of the hunter's approach, and paid for it with their lives. Fabre looked at the subject of Aesop's fable in his own way. The work was created for the exhibition "Jan Fabre. Knight of Despair

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Victoria Calvatone, an ancient Roman bronze in the Hermitage, and its 19th century restoration

The Calvatone Victory. Ancient Roman statue, 2nd century AD. The Hermitage. The inscription VICTORIAE AUG / ANTONINI ET VERI / MARCUS SATRIUS MAIOR records the victory of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus over the barbarians. Until 2019 the sculpture was not exhibited; until the 2010s it lay in storage altogether

NB! · Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Statue of Octavian Augustus in the Guise of Jupiter, Hermitage

Moscow · Museums · Observations · Pop Culture

Pianist Riad Mammadov releases an album recorded at the Pushkin Museum in April 2023

My friend, the pianist and composer Riad Mammadov, has released a new album of academic repertoire and his own compositions, recorded during a solo concert in the Italian Courtyard of the Pushkin Museum in April 2023. The programme of the recital, and of the album, is made up of works