namopanik

Karol Estreicher with recovered da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, April 1946.

Tumblr is a time-eater and I really need to study now. I’ll be back in July.

monsieur-j:

Moschino Safety pin-embellished wool cardigan

The stars are suspended on strings that are pulled up in the daytime and let down at night.

-Babylonian Mythology, 3000 B.C.

(via theancientworld)

theancientworld:

Detail of a Lydian tribute bearer, bas-relief of the northern stairway of the Apadana ( Darius the Great’s audience hall) at Persepolis, Achaemenian persian empire capital .

theancientworld:

Egyptian Sheet gold finger and toe coverings, plus sandals, from the tomb of three minor wives of Thutmose III at Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud, circa 1479-1425 B.C. On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

theancientworld:

Earrings, 330-300 BCE, Ancient Greece
The Hermitage Museum

maquinagem:

poloneses têm os melhores cartazes.
(e isso, senhoras e senhores, foi meu momento cultzinho metido do dia)

“This panel-shaped reliquary follows a format commonly associated with Byzantine staurothekai, or reliquaries of the True Cross. Soon after the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204, which resulted in the transfer of a number of distinguished Byzantine reliquaries of this type, Western artists—especially in the Rhine-Meuse region—started to adopt such Byzantine reliquary formats for their own purposes, thus fusing Eastern and Western metalworking techniques and traditions.
The Cleveland reliquary is one of the most striking examples of such an artistic fusion. A lengthy Latin inscription, executed in niello, frames the reliquary’s central panel in two layers on all four sides. It records the colorful history of the translation of the relic of the True Cross, displayed prominently at the reliquary’s center. While the inscription itself does not reveal where and under what circumstances the cleric named in the translatio account stole the relic, the design of the silver-gilt, double-arm cross— which is, in fact, only the front face of a reliquary cross—points toward the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem as its place of origin. Likewise unknown is the exact location where the panel-shaped reliquary with its thirty additional relics of Christ, the Virgin, John the Baptist and other important saints and martyrs was manufactured. The overall arrangement of these additional relics around the double-arm cross relic as well as the placement of the framing inscription seems to indicate a knowledge of the famous Byzantine staurotheke that Henry of Ulmen brought back with him to the Rhineland from Constantinople in 1207 (now in the cathedral treasury of Limburg an der Lahn), where it served as a highly influential model for local goldsmiths for several decades.”
Holger A. Klein

“This barrel-shaped reliquary consists of a large, cylindrical piece of crystal bored down the middle to create a narrow compartment for a relic. According to medieval lapidaries, rock crystal was a symbol of spiritual purity. Hence the mineral was frequently used to adorn saints’ reliquaries from the early Middle Ages onward. In the Walters’ reliquary, however, rock crystal is not merely decorative but is used as a chamber. In this way, the relic is revealed for veneration rather than hidden from view as in earlier reliquaries. The rock crystal chamber magnified the relics contained inside, establishing the real presence of the saint. The emergence of this new type of transparent reliquary is to be linked with a renewed interest in visibility during the early Gothic period. Transparent reliquaries satisfied the believers’ desire to see the relics without having to handle them. The removal of relics from their containers was prohibited by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which sought to reduce the danger of fraudulent exchanges and commerce in relics. During the twelfth century, improvements in techniques for hollowing rock crystal made possible the production of these “roll” reliquaries. The Baltimore example belongs to a group produced in the Rhine region of Germany around 1200. Two other reliquaries of this group are in Geseke (Church of St. Peter) and in the Schnütgen-Museum, Cologne (g.17).”
Martina Bagnoli