Back of an antique cello with painted decoration: a crowned female figure with a sword, a column, a crown and lilies on amber-brown wood.

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Pop Culture

Andrea Amati of Cremona's Cello for the Court of Charles IX, Mid-16th Century

The oldest cello in the world dates from the mid-sixteenth century. The maker Andrea Amati of Cremona built it as part of a set of 38 stringed instruments for the court of King Charles IX

An elderly man in glasses, a white mitre and white vestments with an embroidered cross stands in a heavy wooden doorway. Two men in dark suits hold the door leaves.

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Clergyman in white vestments and mitre between opening wooden doors

Two-storey cottage with a thatched roof and a timber pergola behind a trimmed hedge and a slatted wooden gate, with dense trees in the background.

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Thatched cottage behind a green hedge with a wooden gate

Colour photograph of a girl in a pink dress walking on a path by a building with wooden galleries, a man and a woman talking nearby.

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

A girl in court dress at Marie Antoinette's Hamlet in Versailles in 1966

Look at this delightful little girl in court dress in Marie Antoinette's hamlet at Versailles in 1966. From the photograph it is impossible to tell whether the gown is of the English or the French type, but be that as it may, what a touching gesture of reverence!