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In 1948 Robert Doisneau secretly photographed passers-by at a gallery window with a nude painting

In 1948, the French photographer Robert Doisneau made a series of secret photographs of people who had caught sight of a nineteenth-century painting of a female nude in the window of an art gallery. Doisneau hid his Rolleiflex behind an antique chair, so that he was nowhere to be

A pond with floating leaves, a stone platform with steps and pots, and a green fabric canopy above it amid dense greenery.

NB! · Observations · Humour

The post's author sees a footballer in a garden with a pond and a stone platform

I don't know whom you see, but I see some footballer. His name, naturally, escapes me

NB! · Observations · Humour

I call upon Kofemania to come to its senses before it is too late!

NB! · Observations · Mores · Humour

A Reminder from Robert Dighton That Any Elegantly Dressed Gentleman Still Has One Foot on the Brink of the Grave

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

They Stand There Swapping Jokes, Delighted

They stand there swapping jokes, delighted. Recalling, no doubt, the secret memoirs of Edward VIII on his collaboration with the Third Reich and his plans to regain the throne with Hitler's help.

Faith · Observations · Society

Guterres's metaphor of the gates of hell and its meaning in ancient and Christian tradition

The UN Secretary-General's words about humanity having opened the gates of hell caught our attention: "Our focus here is on solutions to the climate crisis – and our task is urgent. Humanity has opened the gates of hell. Horrifying heat has horrifying consequences. Fires are raging. The

NB! · Art · Observations · Society Pages · Humour

And There My Review of the Contemporary Art Fair Comes to an End

And there my review of the contemporary art fair comes to an end. In all the photographs for the society pages I shall appear with the KM20 bag; when the photographers offered to shoot me without the carrier bag, I replied: I am not ashamed of carrier bags.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

I Could Not Get a Word with the Artist, but One of the Plasticine Women, the One on the Right, Appears to Be Interacting with a Giant Tardigrade

I could not get a word with the artist, but one of the plasticine women, the one on the right, appears to be interacting with a giant tardigrade. And there is, after all, a great deal of interest to discuss with a tardigrade; I would gladly have had a chat

NB! · Observations · Humour

Not the most obvious pose, perhaps, but a rather familiar one: you have been sitting in some waiting room for ages, and you begin to slide down the faux-leather armchair to ease your back, while the people around stare at you as though you had done…

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

I noticed this work: in 2010, I think, I painted a picture in exactly the same style, but with a man in the bushes, and my mother always begged me to get it out of the house. It now stands somewhere in the garage, wrapped in a hundred layers of polythene

Art · Observations · Society Pages · Humour

I walk up to this stand and say: honestly, people have no shame, it is an exact copy of the Khomich brothers, only in a different technique 😡

The caption on the label reads: Yakov Khomich. Does this ever happen to you? ps Olga Sviblova, who was standing nearby, said at the end of the scene that one of these works ought to be bought

Museums · Observations · Education

Silver mug engraved "For the most marks in all subjects at the examination of 1840, 24th day of December, in Propoisk"

People certainly knew how to give presents and leave a good memory of themselves. 180 years have passed, and this high recognition of academic achievement is still impressive. *Propoisk was an ancient town in the territory of the Principality of Smolensk, now Slawharad in Belarus