Ra as cat (Mau) slays serpent Apophis from "The Book of the Dead of Hunefer" [British Musem].

Ra, the chief god and solar diety, upholder of Maat (truth), must turn into Mau (yes meow) to kill the serpent Apophis, bringer of darkness and chaos, to ensure morning's sunrise and continued existence.

detail of Franklin-Folger Chart showing the Gulf Stream (ca. 1768) attr. to Benjamin Franklin and Timothy Folger [Library of Congress]

#art #map #climate #science #cartography #ocean

In the English-speaking world, cutlery goes business-end (tines and bowls) up. In France, cutlery goes business-end down. Placement of family crests in the 18th century correlated. Which came first?
#cultery #flatware #artifacts #dining #etiquette #silver

French forks (1766-67) [Metmuseum]

#animals #art #DerBlaueReiter #betterworld

"Zoologischer Garten I" (1912) by August Macke [Lenbachhaus]

YouTube video by Seattle Symphony - Topic And God Created Great Whales, Op. 229, No. 1

#whales #music

What the world needs now?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pTu...

Silver quaich made by William Scott (Banff or Aberdeen), circa 1681❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
[National Museums Scotland]

What a springtime vessel for an elegant dram!

Happy 96th birthday to Kusama Yayoi!

"All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins," 2016

Atmospheric invocation of the month...

"A Study, in March" by John William Inchbold (by 1855) [Ashmolean Musem]

A muzzled cat is no good mouser.

Splendid Victorian cast iron facade, Saugerties, New York

#architecture #Victorian #myphoto

Now what that fellow may be about to do with that gun, on the other hand....

The way things are going, this vocation may return. Note smuggling is a completely government-invented crime, not condemned by any of the world's major religions or philosophies....

"Smuggler's Lookout" (1867) by James Alfred Aitken [Warrington Museum and Art Gallery]

#smugglers #art #tariffs

Fin-de-siecle feline escutcheon, Deutsches Eck, Koblenz, Germany

#lion #bronze #sculpture #Germany #myphoto

Form following function leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Flour mill spouts displayed in the Alsatian Folklore Museum, Strasbourg

#Strasbourg #folk #art #grotesque #myphoto

James Watt Dock Sugar Warehouses, Greenock, Scotland (1884-1886)

We often don't see the apparatuses that make modern comforts possible. The Victorians certainly celebrated the functional in a way that now seems forgotten.

#industrial #architecture #Scotland #myphoto #sugar #warehouse

#birds #ceramics

Take delight where you can find it.

"Fish Aquarium" (1928) by Mabel Dwight, lithograph [V&A]

Colossal squid: The eerie ambassador from the abyss The world's largest invertebrate remained hidden from humanity until a tantalising glimpse 100 years ago. But it would be decades before we come face to face with the colossal squid.

Because one should never neglect to post about grand cephalopods.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Have a lovely February 1st, whatever you call it.

Saint Brigid's shoe shrine (16th century), National Museum of Ireland

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's the Year of the Snake, and may we all get a handle on it before it bites us in the rump!

Daoist Priest with Zodiac Animal--Snake (Song Dynasty), Chinese, glazed stoneware [Metropolitan Museum]

YouTube video by Standart The Genius of Josiah Wedgwood | Revolutionary Innovator & Potter Extraordinaire

If you, as I, long for Enlightenment art and industry in these troubled times, you may find this documentary soothing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJe...

A wee bit of aesthetic joy acquired for $3 yesterday in Eagle Bridge, NY. Lawrence pattern (fortified) wine glass by New England Glass (intr. 1868). When I think of all the festivities in which it participated…!

This morning, I'm wondering if there are lessons to be learned from the hundreds of years old Netherlandish struggle to keep the elements at bay in this new world forever altered by climate change. Photo: Windmills at Kinderdijk that have long been part of the water management system.

A corner in the Falkenlust stairwell, built for the heron-hunting mad Archbishop-Elector of Koln (Cologne). Heron hunting wasn't supposed to be lethal--one would capture the heron and put an iron ring around its leg.

The dining room of Blair Castle, Perthshire, Scotland

The Raffish and Radical Constantine Samuel Rafinesque - JSTOR Daily Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was an adventuring naturalist who named 2,700 genera and wrote about evolution before Darwin. Why has he been forgotten?

daily.jstor.org/the-raffish-...

"Haunted House" (1930) by Morris Kantor [Art Institute of Chicago]

John Moisant and Mlle. Fifi, the first feline aviatrix, c. 1911. May she be an inspiration to us all. [Library of Congress]

"Still Life with Cake" (1818) by Raphaelle Peale [MetMuseum]. Time and fate create change. Grapes become raisins, and you can put them in the cake. Alternately, the grapes can be fermented in a barrel and sent over a sweltering ocean to become Madeira wine. Hold on, am I the cake or the Madeira?

"Snow" (c. 1958) by Joan Eardley [National Galleries of Scotland]