In Central Europe, churches’ furniture dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries may often be a source of very interesting curiosities. For example, let’s take a look at pulpits: they sometimes had extremely weird shapes, as well as complex theological meaning. Some time ago I wrote about whale-shaped pulpits…
One of the most surprising ancient sculptures in the collection of Louvre in Paris is probably Sleeping Hermaphroditus – it is a Roman marble statue, and a copy after lost bronze Hellenistic Greek sculpture (dating back to mid-second century B.C., mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his “Natural History”). It…
In my previous post I started a story about late-gothic panels from York, which used to be predella-wings of some Nuremberg altarpiece, created in the workshop of Hans Pleydenwurff. Before your read this post, you may want to get back to the previous one, especially on the subject of the…
Another article presenting results of my research in the National Inventory of Continental European Paintings project has just been published – therefore I decided to present some of these results also here on my blog. This time it is about a late gothic panel, painted on both sides, described in…
I like old images of less known saints: sometimes it is a real challenge (and lots of fun) to decipher depictions of now forgotten legends. Some saints used to be popular in past centuries (especially regionally) but they are no longer recognisable to nowadays viewers. That is often the case…