The Cat’s Maew: Thai Treatise on Auspicious Felines (19th Century)
A manuscript that pairs illustrations of cats with poetic descriptions and notes on what mystical benefits their owners might hope to accrue. Source link
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Ivan Aivazovsky’s Miniature Seascapes (ca. 1887) — The Public Domain Review
For Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900), born in Feodosia, Crimea, to Armenian parents and often memorialized as one of the Russian Empire’s great marine painters, capturing the sea usually called for large…
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A Collection of Old English Customs, and Curious Bequests and Charities (1842)
A compilation of historical gifting traditions in England, with a focus on the peculiar. Source link
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“You Think Me a Bold Cheat”: Mary Carleton, Counterfeit Princess — The Public Domain Review
About the matter of her own deceitfulness, Mary concedes a surprising amount. She claims not to be lying about the big things. She is German and she is innocent —…
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The Shadow of Desire: Painting the Origins of Art (ca. 1625–1850) — The Public Domain Review
In Pliny’s time, Kora’s act of tracing may have been overshadowed, as it were, with the cluster of associations swirling around the word eidolon, which, according to Hagi Kenaan, “held…
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The End of the World as We (Didn’t) Know It: *Now and Then #5* — The Public Domain Review
The world was supposed to end yesterday, and didn’t. A viral TikTok anxiety trend (aka #rapturetok), this latest Rapture non-starter was predicted by Joshua Mhlakela of South Africa, who, in…
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Birth of the Pearl (1901)
A "living picture" film staging Botticelli’s Birth of Venus with a twist. Source link
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Vertiginous Accounts: Travels in the Air (1871 edition)
Expedition accounts of aeronauts bravely venturing into the heavens on hot-air balloons. Source link
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The Adventures and Experiences of the First Slovak Novel — The Public Domain Review
Book II tells of René’s travels in “places that were less perfidious and less dangerous” (Northern Italy, Austria, and Upper Hungary). Like Montesquieu in Persian Letters (1721), Bajza uses the…
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The Nature of the Beast: Charles le Brun’s Human-Animal Hybrids (1806) — The Public Domain Review
Still, he admits, it is true that prominent men have prominent noses — everyone since Aristotle has agreed about that. An aquiline nose, we learn, is a necessary component of…
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