Mycenaean bronze daggers, inlaid with scenes featuring animals, sea creatures, birds and a lion hunt, made an astonishing 3,500 years ago (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

The world in a reflection ~ Olga Antonova says that her still-life paintings aim “to catch that moment of solitude, that quiet harmony that people can relate to” olgaantonova.com/biography/

St Anne, traditionally regarded as the grandmother of Christ, places a finger to her lips~ the only known depiction of its type (8/9th century, Nubia). Possibly she’s asking for silence, or maybe it’s to prevent the devil from entering while she was praying

From his elevated viewpoint in an upper side box, Edgar Degas creates a memorable pastel ‘snapshot’ of a dancer performing on a stage ~ notable for the radical cropping of the other dancers at L and the deft impressionist decoration of the tutus (Dancer in Green, 1879)

These two codgers turned up at our local craft market, doggedly trying to make a dollar selling their ceramic plates. Hah! Neither could even draw a straight line! Who do they think they are ~ Picasso and Chagall? 😃 (yes! In 1948, at Madoura workshop) blog.artsper.com/en/a-closer-...

Secret signs in Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus? On the wicker fruit basket, two curving twigs ~ one illuminated, one not ~ seem to intertwine to form the shape of a fish, the secret sign of early Christians. Can you also find another fishy sign close by? Photo: Alamy www.bbc.com/culture/arti...

Yoshida Hiroshi helped revive woodblock prints in 20C after inroads made by photography. He travelled widely, absorbing western influences in portraying light and depth. He visited India often in 1930s ~ and here’s some of what he saw (Udaipur Castle / Kailasa Temple, Ellora)

Enjoying the folksy charm of the children ~ and the insight into how children dressed ~ in this 16C wooden altarpiece from St. Gertrude’s church, Lübeck. While one child eats their porridge from a bowl, another at rides a hobbyhorse (now at St Annen-Museum) www.medieval.eu/late-medieva...

A flaring candle reveals a jewel-like still-life of fruit & vegetables on a table, as young woman carrying oranges on a yoke looks at us enigmatically, while others are trading in the darkened market behind her ~Petrus van Schendel, Market by Candlelight 1865 byronsmuse.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

Night falls in the garden of the artist’s home in Gerberoy ~ a table is laid, the wine poured, the vase filled with flowers, and the chairs pulled back invitingly. The dreamlike feeling is heightened by the darkened edges (Henri Le Sidaner, c1900) byronsmuse.wordpress.com/tag/the-tabl...

Under a crescent moon, two cats fraternize on the rooftop. Below them is the shadow of two people conversing behind the translucent sliding screen. The marginal text comments that “there’s no difference between high love and low love” (Japanese postcard, 1908)

This remarkable colour photograph of hot air balloons at the inaugural Paris Air Show was taken in 1909 by Léon Gimpel, using the Autochrome Lumière process, the first commercial process for colour photography

19th century Europe-based Charles Ulrich specialised in realist depictions of working class or marginalised people ~ here, a village printing shop, Haarlem / the emigrant landing depot in “The Land of Promise” New York (1884)

Graceful yet dynamic ~ Art Deco bronze sculpture ‘Dancer with a Hoop’, poised on an onyx orb with marble plinth, by Aurore Onu (c 1925) www.bonhams.com/auction/2778...

Both Utagawa Hiroshige and Vincent van Gogh get down to ground level in their vibrant, close-up depictions of irises (Hiroshige, Iris Gardens at Horikiri, 1857 ■ Van Gogh, Irises, 1889)

Splendid tabletop, with finely-detailed flowers, fruit, birds, insects and foliage, made in Florence in 1630s by setting semi-precious stones into black marble. This “pietre dure” form of engraving was one of the most prestigious and expensive of its time norwichcastle.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/a...

French artist Jean-Pierre Laurens’ quietly-restrained depiction of his sister-in-law Alice with her young son, mourning the loss of her husband Raymond who died in the last weeks of WW1 (The Mourning Wife, 1922)

Yoshida Hiroshi’s spectacular woodblock print ‘Grand Canyon’ (1925), based on a watercolour that he painted during one of his trips to the US www.viewingjapaneseprints.net/texts/shin_h...

Fresh-faced young woman holds up a fine blue Chinese cup to enjoy the light shining through it, in this painting by US artist Joseph DeCamp (1909)

Monet said, “One does not paint a landscape. One paints an impression of an hour of the day”. Here’s his Haystacks at Giverny (1884) together with Japanese woodblock artist Yoshida Hiroshi’s Sailing Boats (1926) www.viewingjapaneseprints.net/texts/shin_h... www.artinsociety.com/pt-3-the-new...

A tortoise with a yen for travel hangs on for dear life, as it belatedly discovers that flying with birds might not be such a good idea (1480 Book of Fables, Germany, c1480. Manuscript 680; © Photo RMN (Domaine de Chantilly)

A 1497 copy of Dante’s classic Divine Comedy, held by the University of Sydney, has been discovered to have a rare chalk sketch by the famous artist Giorgione on the last page, together with a later notification of his death during the plague www.mup.com.au/books/giorgi...

Love the confident gaze of this woman in Gustave Klimt’s charcoal drawing from 1891, done in his early ‘realistic’ style

Superb image of the ‘White House’ ruins in the Canyon de Chelle, Arizona, captured by photographer Timothy H O’Sullivan over 150 years ago. The canyon was occupied by the Navajo for centuries and is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North America

Downcast angel, with bandaged forehead & wounded wing, clutches snowdrops (a sign of renewal) as she sits on stretcher held by two troubled boys. Interpretations vary, but maybe this was a reaction to the Russification of Finland, homeland of artist Hugo Simberg (1903)

We see many paintings that look like photos, but here are some photos that look like paintings. Céline Laguarde’s pioneer work as a pictorial photographer in early 1900s has only recently been rediscovered. Here are some of her intriguingly atmospheric images awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/c...

It is evening, as a woman with young children shops in the brightly-lit vegetable market at Koyasuchō in Kanagawa Prefecture, in this woodblock print by Ishiwata Kōitsu (1931)

JUST PUBLISHED! In our latest article we we examine how and why a respectable 24-year-old woman carried out a carefully-planned assassination, and how its depiction in art transformed the death into a potent instrument of propaganda www.artinsociety.com/jacques-loui...

A rainy evening in Teradomari, just over 100 years ago ~ a huddled traveller braves the storm, as puddles reflect the warm lights of the village houses (Kawase Hasui, woodblock print, 1921)

Two young women with drinks and snacks on their table look up at us a little warily, as if caught by a passing photographer, in this 1930 painting by Italian artist Carlo Vitale. The mirror on the wall depicts other customers in the busy café

Only a princess could be so finely sensitive that she would be troubled by a single pea placed under all these mattresses and featherbeds. Here’s two wonderful illustrations of her in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale ~ at L, by Gennady Spirin and at R by Edmund Dulac

Try this 1390 recipe for “sambocade”~ elderflower-flavoured curd tart, from book on cookery by Richard II's chief cook. Modern reviewer praised its “glorious bouquet of flavour", reminiscent of "Yorkshire curd tarts, fragrant hedgerows & long summer days” (British Library)

Scottish artist Elizabeth Keith’s woodblock print of a famous teahouse in Shanghai ~ a “two-story pavilion with sweeping eaves and red lattice windows built over the water on timber piles”, created in 1924 in Japanese shin-hanga style www.villageantiques.ch/tea-house-sh...

Just over 100 years ago, Jacques Lartigue photographed his partner ‘Bibi’ (Madeleine Messager), quietly reading in a sunlit corner at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, Cap d’Antibes. She lives on reading here forever... (1920)

I’m enjoying Swiss artist Fritz Urban Welti’s woodblock print ‘Girl With a Rose” and a bowl of goldfish (1971) www.villageantiques.ch/1971-girlwit...

This beautifully-detailed 17C painting by Abraham Mignon is called Still Life with Fruit, Fish and a Nest, but for me this is a severe injustice to the frog, who is a highlight (NGA, Washington, 1675)

Gustav Klimt painted this strikingly realistic portrait of Marie Breunig in 1894. She was a friend and client of his long-term partner, fashion designer Emilie Flöge (Belvedere Museum, Vienna)

Just in case you’re feeling a little glum about things, here’s an 18th century watercolour of a perky Tufted Titmouse to cheer you up www.villageantiques.ch/tufted-titmo...

Almost 100 years ago ~ in a patch of sunlight, two schoolgirls cast reflections in the water as they pick their way across a shallow stream in the misty bushland grounds of Frensham School in Mittagong, New South Wales (Sepia-toned gelatin siver photo by Harold Cazneaux, 1934)

An 18th century moon mission ~ this photograph-like image of a gibbous Moon, with the dark patches of the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Tranquillity, is actually a remarkable pastel created by English painter John Russell, way back in 1795

Andrew Wyeth’s wife Betsy, seen here at L (‘Maga’s Daughter’, 1966), was the model for the head and torso of her paralysed friend/neighbour Christina Olson in Andrew’s famous ‘Christina’s World’ (1948). She also suggested the title www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/04/28/b...

Two totally contrasting ways to depict a drinking glass ~ a minimalist glass of water, in this charcoal sketch by late 19C artist Eugène Carrière / and a glass of wine, with cunningly-reflected self-portrait, attributed to 16C artist Ambrosius Bosschaert

Extraordinarily delicate Art Nouveau hair comb with two jewelled dragonflies competing for honey in the form of an orange citrine gem (Lucien Gaillard, 1904, Rijkmuseum)

17C Dutch painter Gerrit Dou depicts astronomer working into the night, with an hourglass at his side, as he holds a candle to illuminate the text he's consulting, & measures out a distance on his celestial globe (detail, Astronomer by Candlelight, 1650s) getty.edu/art/collecti...

Actor Jennifer Jones on the studio set of the 1955 movie ‘Love is a Many-Splendored Thing’, with pre-digital “special effects” ~ rear-projection and fake bushy foreground www.messynessychic.com/2025/09/09/1...

I’m enjoying French artist Maurice de Vlaminck’s bold use of vibrant colour and short, bold brushstrokes in ‘The River Seine at Chatou’ (1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)

British artist Stanley Spencer’s panoramic ‘Harbour, St Ives’ (1937), painted during a holiday in the town, shortly after his ill-fated marriage to Patricia Preece

You may be surprised that this woodblock print is actually by a Scottish artist, Elizabeth Keith, who lived in Japan for a decade ~ with blue & white colouring in the clothes worn by woman & shopkeeper, the umbrella, curtains, ceramic plates, & print of The Great Wave on the wall (1925)

British artist Oswald Birley’s glowing portrait of his young wife Rhoda Pike was inspired by their attendance at a costume ball during a honeymoon visit to Venice (detail, The Green Masque, 1922) godsandfoolishgrandeur.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-...

Unflinching study for a portrait of the weather-beaten, salt encrusted “Sea Dog” Walt Anderson, painted by his long-time friend Andrew Wyeth in 1971 (detail, egg tempera) www.facebook.com/groups/58441...