A pale statue of a nude youth with long hair stands on an oval base in a museum gallery.

NB! · Art · Museums

Greek kouros statue of about the 6th century BC in the Getty Museum

Kouros. Greek sculpture, approximately 6th century BC, Getty Museum

NB! · Observations · Humour

I don't know about you, but instead of a festive mood we have sad holy noises

Black and white photograph of a man dressed as Santa Claus on a sleigh piled with toys, pulled by two turkeys across a snowy field.

NB! · Archive · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Santa Claus on a toy-laden sleigh drawn by turkeys in a photograph from 1909

How do you like Santa in a sleigh drawn by turkeys? 1909

NB! · Archive · People · Saint Petersburg

This is how Rasputin's body looked when it was found in the river on 19 December 1916

Two old painted wooden figures support the legs of a crucified body, with nail holes in the feet. The paint is worn, and the background is pale grey-green.

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Descent from the Cross: polychrome wooden sculpture group in a museum case

In a museum display case stand four painted wooden figures: Christ with outstretched arms and three figures beside him.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

Umbrian Deposition of the thirteenth century in the Louvre and its likeness to Russian northern carving

The Deposition from the Cross, second quarter of the 13th century, Umbria, Louvre. The three-dimensional, life-size figures of polychrome poplar, willow and walnut wood recall the church sculpture of the Russian North.

High view of a large hall under a glazed ceiling in a metal frame. Galleries with ornate iron railings run around the walls, where paint is peeling.

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Hall with a glass ceiling and tiered galleries

A boatman in a small boat on a blue river: a green shore with tiny angels on the left, a dark shore with fire and a stone gateway on the right, under a cloudy sky.

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Joachim Patinir, Charon Crossing the Styx

A vessel of dark nut shell in gilded mounts, with a horn on top and a handle, on a white plinth in a museum display case.

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · New York

Vessel of Seychelles nut shell in gold mounts by Viennese masters of the 16th century at the Metropolitan Museum

Do you remember the cups of precious metals and exotic shells in the Kremlin Armoury? Well, the Metropolitan Museum holds a vessel made of a gold-mounted nut shell from the Seychelles, fashioned in the sixteenth century by Viennese craftsmen

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Paris · Pop Culture

Speaking of costly jewels, this pearl parure of Marie Antoinette was inherited by her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, the last Dauphine of France and Duchess of Angoulême

Speaking of costly jewels, this pearl parure of Marie Antoinette was inherited by her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, the last Dauphine of France, Duchess of Angoulême. The enormous pearl pendant from this set was recently sold for £27,881,497

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But This Is Going Too Far

Portrait of Cymburgis of Masovia in a white headdress, eyes lowered, wearing a red dress and a gold chain around her neck.

NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies

Cymburgis of Masovia Shown Without Prognathism, Unlike Her Habsburg Descendants

Incidentally, in the surviving portraits of the Habsburgs' foremother, Cymburgis of Masovia, the protruding jaw is not shown, whereas her descendants were for the most part portrayed with the family trait quite unconcealed. Leopold I, from the seventeenth century, for one