Gallery wall with a large sketch of a costumed female figure in a gold frame at the centre, surrounded by smaller drawings in dark frames.

NB! · Art · People

Natalia Goncharova's drawing “Sketch of a Woman's Dress with a Boa”, second half of the 1920s

Natalia Goncharova. “Design for a Woman’s Dress with a Boa”. Second half of the 1920s.

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations

Eighteenth-Century Silver and Table Curiosities Made from Nuts

Eighteenth-century silver and table curiosities made from nuts. I wrote once about similar exhibits in the Armoury Chamber and in the Metropolitan Museum. But some people simply keep such things at home

NB! · Archive · Art · Books · Museums

One of the best-known works in the collection: Konstantin Somov

One of the best-known works in the collection: Konstantin Somov, “Alexandra Levchenko”, 1936. A preparatory study for La Belle Simonetta. I give here the text from Somov's diary of 1934. But Maxim himself says that for him this is, above all, Alexandra Levchenko in the guise of

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations

Display cases with eighteenth-century glass: for the collector what matters here is not the glass but the engraved design, since the whole conception of this collection rested on the uniqueness of the engravings

NB! · Observations

Well, It All Adds Up

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But let us not tempt fate, as they say

Glass case by a window: a mannequin in black monastic robes and headdress, beside a clergyman's portrait, a staff, a rosary and a document. A humidifier stands on the floor.

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Museum display case with monastic robes, a portrait and a rosary

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Rome · Humour

Overdosing on fillers: when the Emperor Trajan cannot be told from the Emperor Vespasian

Overdosing on fillers: when the Emperor Trajan cannot be told from the Emperor Vespasian. The large marble so-called Bosham Head of AD 121 was found in West Sussex in 1800 and is on display at the Chichester District Museum.

A dark-haired man in a black uniform with red piping and a blond man in a tailcoat and white tie look at each other; a man in a brown uniform stands behind.

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Two men face to face: an officer in black uniform and a man in a tailcoat

Two white caryatid statues flank a balcony door with a wrought-iron railing. The façade is peach, with white window frames and sculpted lion masks below.

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Balcony with two caryatids on a peach-coloured façade

NB! · Observations · Humour

I want the magazines to print something like this beside my photographs

A wide steel guillotine blade with three holes in a glass display case with a French label.

NB! · Museums · Observations · Paris

Guillotine blade from the Revolutionary Terror in the Paris Police Prefecture Museum

Time to freeze. A guillotine blade used during the years of the Revolutionary Terror in France. From the Museum of the Paris Police Prefecture in the Latin Quarter, which is unfashionable, but quite large and rich.