Hermitage – Winter Palace, St. Petersburg (photo P. Hunt 2017) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – It has been variously said that even if you stood in front of each Hermitage Museum object a few seconds less than a minute you’d need a total of eleven continuous years, day and night, […]
Image Courtesy of Jean-Pascal Jospin, Laura Dalaine Hannibal et les Alpes: une traversee in mythe, 2011 By Patrick Hunt – Anyone with some imagination about Hannibal often thinks first of his intrepid army march over the Alps with elephants. I’m often asked more about the elephants than the multicultural army […]
Detail of Bronzino, Deposition (Besançon, 1543) By Andrea M. Gáldy – While many people still consider the Renaissance to have been a movement created largely in Florence and Rome, in recent decades this understanding has been changing. The Renaissance has become more international and its chronology has become wider, one […]
Lausanne Cathedral Stained Glass Zodiac: Capricorn (Photo P. Hunt, 2016) By Alice Devine Wilson – “Of fowls after their kind and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping things of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come….” (Genesis, 6:19-20) Had Noah’s Ark perched atop the […]
St. Basil’s Church, Red Square, Moscow (photo P. Hunt, 2017) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Moscow’s Red Square is one of the most recognizable places in the world, and dominating its southern end is the landmark St. Basil’s Cathedral, the 16th century monastic structure that millions can easily identify […]
By Patrick Hunt – Readers used to courtly fanfare in larger than life Tudor and Jacobean characters – Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and even James I – largely assume a life with only a few cornets pealing around Charles I, however peevish and absolutist his history […]
Tang Dynasty Terracotta Female Tomb Figurines, 8th c. (image in public domain) By Patrick Hunt – Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) ceramics are otherwise deservedly famous for the sancai triple glaze, but often overlooked are the terracotta tomb attendant figurines of mingqi (“spirit deities”) who represent court ladies-in-waiting hovering nearby in the […]
Athena Parthenon model with cast of Athena Parthenios statue, Ludwig Maxmilians University Museum, Munich (image courtesy LMU, 2017) By Andrea Galdy – German universities are finally starting to engage with a particular kind of treasure many of them still possess: collections of many diverse categories that may have made a […]
By Nikki Goddard – For most people, splurging on a bottle of wine would mean spending fifty, maybe one hundred dollars. However, when it comes to the finest and rarest wines in the world, collectors are willing to pay exponentially higher prices for the opportunity to taste vinous bliss. […]
Chinese Qing Dynasty Jade ca. 1730-95, “Philosopher’s Repose” Jade Mountain (image public domain, courtesy of the British Museum, London) By Patrick Hunt – Jade is well known globally as a stone with innate translucent beauty, lustrous and vibrant in many shades of mostly green, although lavender and orange hues also […]