Had a small dispute with ArtUK and National Trust Collections over Sir James Jebusa Shannon's 1918 portrait of Violet Lindsay, Duchess of Rutland (1856-1937)

Had a small dispute with ArtUK and National Trust Collections over Sir James Jebusa Shannon's 1918 portrait of Violet Lindsay, Duchess of Rutland (1856-1937). The cause of my displeasure is the description of the work, which states that in this exotic portrait Lady Violet, her hands dramatically clasped, wears a headdress in the style of Mucha. Naturally, Alphonse Mucha and his Art Nouveau never so much as passed by. I am sure that to a Russian viewer it is obvious: the Duchess of Rutland is dressed in a stylised Russian national costume, and on her head is no Muchaesque headpiece at all but a genuine kokoshnik. In those years the Russian style was thoroughly well known in Europe, and in London high society too, thanks to Anna Pavlova, who appeared regularly at balls and private parties in Russian costume, some of it designed by Bilibin, and did so even in the presence of King Edward VI. And Violet Lindsay herself was on friendly terms with the society lady Amélie Louise Rives, wife of Prince Pyotr Trubetskoy, which could not fail to bring Russian aristocratic habits into their immediate circle

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Had a small dispute with ArtUK and National Trust Collections over Sir James Jebusa Shannon's 1918 portrait of Violet Lindsay, Duchess of Rutland (1856-1937)

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s