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NB! · Faith · Museums · Ethnography
This alarming exhibit from the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft is a nábrók, ritual underwear made from the skin of a corpse, worn to attract great wealth
NB! · Mores · Nature · Humour
In the Eighteenth Century Pugs Were So Popular in Europe That One Masonic Lodge Came to Be Called the Order of the Pug
In the eighteenth century pugs were so popular in Europe that one Masonic lodge came to be called the Order of the Pug. Members of the order wore collars, barked and bowed down before images of pugs
NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Mores · Ethnography · Humour
In medieval Sweden, unmarried women were buried with a mirror, so that they might set their hair straight at the resurrection at the end of time and look a little better
In medieval Sweden, unmarried women were buried with a mirror, so that they might set their hair straight at the resurrection at the end of time and look a little better. Even at the Last Judgement, one is received by one's dress
NB! · The East · Art · Monarchies · Museums · Humour
Ivory furniture set given by Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan at the Salar Jung Museum
An ivory suite presented by Louis XVI to Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Indian state of Mysore, is on display in the Salar Jung Museum, India's largest art museum. A question: why carry sand to the beach?
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Mores · Humour
Claude Gillot’s “The Two Carriages” of 1707 and a quarrel between servants before their carriages
Problems of the aristocracy: how to settle relations between the servants? Claude Gillot, The Two Carriages, 1707. And do not be alarmed: the woman with the reptilian face is in fact merely wearing a velvet mask known as a “moretta”.
NB! · Books · Society · People
The memoirs of KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, "The Soviet Special Services in the Secret War", contain a curious episode about Pasternak
The book by KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, "The Soviet Special Services in the Secret War", contains a curious episode about Pasternak. His words on the attempt by Western intelligence services to promote a "dissident" sound especially lively
NB! · Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · People · Pop Culture · Humour
The portraits of Napoleon's younger sister, Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, recall today's Instagram divas: the same expression and the same angle everywhere, only the frocks and parures change
NB! · Faith · Art · Cinema · Humour
An Incredible Likeness!
An incredible likeness! A bust of Friedrich Charles Timothy Emmerich (1786-1820), preacher at the Church of Saint Thomas in Strasbourg, who looks remarkably like Alfie Allen, Theon Greyjoy of "Game of Thrones"
NB! · Books · Mores · Paris · Humour
There’s a damn’d Love-trick new brought oer from France
There’s a damn’d Love-trick new brought oer from France. In short, John Dryden holds France to be the lawgiver of sex between men. The tragedy “The Duke of Guise” dates from 1683, and the idea is alive and well to this day
NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Nature
No one ever saw a genuine barometz, and the search for it went on until the end of the eighteenth century
No one ever saw a genuine barometz, and the search for it went on until the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing from a book by the German Friedrich Justin Bertuch
NB! · Archive · Books · Nature
The Scythian or Tartarian Lamb
The Scythian or Tartarian Lamb (Borametz). Drawing from Claude Duret's "Admirable History of Plants" (Histoire admirable des plantes), 1605