NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies

"Concert Given by the Duc de Nevers in Honour of the Dauphin's Birthday", by the Baroque Italian painter Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1751

NB! · Architecture · Books · London

The Legendary Reading Room of the British Library

Bronze chair on three curved legs with a backrest shaped like spread wings and a crimson velvet seat.

NB! · Art · Observations

Three-legged winged bronze chair by Mark Brazier-Jones, 1990

Marc Brazier-Jones, Three-Legged Winged Chair, bronze, 1990. I reckon one ought to take it

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People · Pop Culture

Julia Roberts during the filming of "Wild Horses of Mongolia" in 1999

Stage design sketch: crossing beams of light on a dark background with ladders, and figures in wide white costumes and masks dancing in the foreground.

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · Society Pages

Works by Alexandra Exter at the exhibition “Girlfriends” for Varvara Stepanova’s anniversary at the Pushkin Museum

Works by Alexandra Exter, one of the key women artists of Russian Constructivism, at the exhibition "Friends. For the Anniversary of Varvara Stepanova", which opened yesterday in the Gallery of European and American Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

Open metal casket with embossed ornament on the lid and small curved feet; inside, a long scroll is wound around a central spindle.

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Gilded cylindrical casket holding a tightly wound scroll

NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Books

The Penitent Harlot Thaïs Burns Her Worldly Goods under the Guidance of Her Spiritual Mentor Paphnutius

The penitent harlot Thaïs burns her worldly goods under the guidance of her spiritual mentor Paphnutius. An illustration from the enigmatic manuscript of the "Smithfield Decretals", a compilation of legal texts commissioned by Pope Gregory IX and dated to the thirteenth century, southern France

NB! · Aristocracy · Architecture · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Saint Petersburg

The Bathroom of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna in the Winter Palace

The bathroom of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna in the Winter Palace. Eduard Petrovich Hau, 1850s

NB! · Archive · The East · Art · Books · Mores

Life in the Muscovite State in the Sixteenth Century in Engravings from Adam Olearius's "Description of a Journey to Muscovy, to Persia and Back", 1696 Edition

NB! · Archive · Books · Mores · Ethnography

Street Theatre in the Sixteenth-Century Tsardom of Muscovy, as Adam Olearius Saw It

NB! · Cinema · Observations · Humour

The actresses Evgenia Dmitrieva and Sarah Paulson really are very alike, are they not?

NB! · Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Paris