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Biennais, Martin-Guillaume (1764-1843), ‘Mirroir a double face’ gilded bronze, Musée National du Palais, Compiegne Detail from a mirror in the exhibition:  ‘Napoléon Ier ou la légende des Arts, 1800 – 1815’.   Link: http://palaisdecompiegne.fr/expositions-et-evenements/expositions/exposition-en-cours

‘Sphinx’, 18th century copy after the antique prototype in the Vatican, pink granite, placed in Compiegne in 1845 Four sphinxes guard the garden site of the palace in Compiegne, made after the pharaonic prototype (lying flat on the belly, male waering the Royal headdress or the nemes. Also the material, pink granite, is a traditional…

One of the sphinxes guarding the house at the Rue Le Sueur (16 arr.) in Paris, modelled after the Baroque prototype: lying flat on the belly with a female face.

‘Desert dri’ for Shulton, 1960, 2/3 page ad with black and white photo, 13 x 29 cm This 1960 advert by Shulton, presenting the Desert Dri Roll Anti-perspirant, shows interesting features. Main target is to keep the arm pits dry, pesonified by the desert sand from which the model seems to emerge.

When visiting the exhibition ‘The Classical Ideal’ in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, it became obvious a spcific set of sculpture formed the canon of antiquity: Apollo Belvedere, Laocoon and the Farnese Hercules were most popular. But the river gods were present as well. Fauna identified which water was meant: the she wolf suckeling the…

Zwecker, Johann Baptist (1814–1876), ‘Tod der Cleopatra’ ca. 1840, copper engraving, 14 x 21,8 cm. (page, image: 10 x 13,9 cm.) engraved by Georg Friedrich Karl Deucker (1801-1863) Frankfurt from: Strahlheim, C., ‘Das Welttheater, oder die allgemeine Weltgeschichte von der Schöpfung bis zum Jahr 1840, Frankfurt am Main 1834, vol.3, p. 527 (496) Sphinxes serve…

Postcard ‘En Égypte: Le Sphinx et la grande pyramide’ before 1911 (stamped 9-6-11), tondo: coloured lithograph, text ‘Bon Souvenir’ in relief and gilded letters on double paper, Lehnert and Landrock, Cairo. This weekend I visited the exhibition ‘Carthago’ in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. The artefacts were impressive and beautifully displayed. But not…

In the Dutch ‘Week of the Classics’ with this year’s theme ‘To Arms’, here two classical composite creatures explaining their adventures to each other. Expressed in a thought-balloon avant-la-lettre. The Chimera, the lion with the goat’s head and the snake tail, discusses his confrontation with the hero Bellerophon. The Theban sphinx, the winged lion with…

French, before 1910, silver bromide photo postcard, no. 87 from a series. Yesterday, March 14, the exhibition ‘Wondere Wereld’ (‘Wonderous World) started in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, dedicated to early post cards. The experiment with the available techniques in photography, lead to hilarious worlds: there were a lot of smiling visitors. An example is this…

‘Champollion’, ca. 1790-1832, no.13 from the series of ‘Les Hommes Celebres’, lithograph, 10,5 x 6,8 cm Sitting on a ruinous throne, Jean-Francois Champollion, called le Jeune, contemplates a statuette of a Pharao (wearing the red and white crown) while leaning on a palm column. The French Egyptologist is depicted on the Giza platform, (he actually…