Fully Swan Navel

You want me to put something in here?

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

Celtic Bronze Horse (550-300 BC), used as a votive item, found near the border of France and Germany.

Horse was of tremendous importance to the early nomadic Celts, a major symbol of energy, power and fertility. There is also an evidence that the ancient Celts rode horses and used them in warfare. Epona is the White Mare Horse Goddess, also known as Rhiannon (Wales) and Macha and Etain (reland).

Belgae who worshipped Epona, probably carved the famous White Horse 370ft long into the chalk at Uffington (in Berkshire). The fertility cult of Epona stretched from Spain to Eastern Europe and Northern Italy to Britain. Irish Kings were still symbolically united with a white mare in 11th Century CE, the White mare representing the land of Ireland, whose fertility is assured by her union with the mortal king. The horse symbolizes the soul's journey to Otherworld and Underworld, land of the dead.

The ghostly gray cloud horses were the steeds of Odin's wild hunt" made up of the souls of the dead galloping over treetops. Another relic of pre-Christian horse worship is the morris dancer's traditional horse-headed stick or 'hobby horse' the 'cock-horse' ridden to Banbury Cross to see the Goddess make her ritual ride as Lady Godiva. This design by Jen Delyth, is based on Pictish carving of Scottish Inverurie Stone.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

#archaeohistories

[Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @PP_Rubens]

She was always THE woman. Looking right at you from 1590: Infanta Catalina Micaela (almost surely), painted by Sofonisba Anguissola (probably). Surely one of the greatest renaissance portraits.

[WANA Visuals @wana_visualss]

Portrait of a man. Roman Egypt, mid 2nd century AD.

[Chapps @chapps]

This amphoriskos (perfume bottle) made of banded agate is a rarity. Symbols of wealth and sophistication, used as diplomatic gifts and kept as heirlooms in antiquity and later. Imitations were made in glass and pottery.

Roman, late 1st c. BCE–early 1st c. CE

#MetMuseum 📸 me

[Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @PP_Rubens]

Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, 1650: painter & rebel. Gutted her family by becoming Catholic. Here by her art teacher Gerrit van Honthorst, whose day is today.

[Archaeology & Art @archaeologyart]

Snuffbox, Paris, c. 1740. Crafted from gold and mother of pearl. Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

[Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @PP_Rubens]

Born on this day in 1560 in Bologna, Annibale Carracci. Here drawn by himself.

[Chapps @chapps]

A spectacularly colorful terracotta funerary urn from Centuripe in Sicily, depicting a bride and her attendants. The sealed vessel resembles a tholos-style tomb or temple, with lion-headed waterspouts, triglyphs and metopes. #polychromy 😍

Greek, 3rd-2nd c. BC
#MetMuseum 📸 me

[Graeme Peacock @GraemePeacock1]

Sunrise didn’t quite dovetail with slack high tide. I missed the crucial symmetry moment by 20 minutes, by which time the mighty river was on the move again. It’s the little things that make all the difference. I’ll do better next time :)

[The Museum of Curiosities @CuriosMuseum]

Werewolves leaning against the wall of a cemetery at night, a lithograph by Maurice Sand, 1858.

via @ThanatosArchive

[John McCafferty @jdmccafferty]

Michiel Sweerts, Self-portrait with Skull Around 1661. Here Sweerts puts his finger into the nasal cavity of the memento mori skull. Not your usual portrait. (Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's Universit

[Retro Horror @el_zombo]

Margaret Hamilton / publicity still from Victor Fleming’s The Wizard Of Oz (1939) / photo by Virgil Apger for MGM.

[John McCafferty @jdmccafferty]

A bow ring from Istanbul, 2nd half of the 16th century Nephrite, gold, rubies.

(Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)

[Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @PP_Rubens]

Man, interrupted. Wonderful portrait by the great Quinten Metsys of Antwerp, whose day has been today.

[Gareth Harney @OptimoPrincipi]

Greek bronze Chalcidian helmet from Magna Graecia, with distinctive winged peaks riveted above each ear, c.350 BC, Mougins Museum of Classical Art.

[Nina Willburger @DrNWillburger]

A friend who is involved in the Esna restoration project has shared with me his latest impressive photos of the restored walls and columns of the Temple of Khnum in Esna, Upper #Egypt. The colours of the reliefs and inscriptions in the building have been covered by a....1/2

[BabelColour @StuartHumphryes]

Travel back 112 years to November 1912: I have enhanced for you this striking autochrome taken by Stéphane Passet in Kyoto, Japan.
It was taken in colour and isn't colourised.

[Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @PP_Rubens]

Distracted by her dog: lady at virginals, w/ great proto-Mondrian view out the window, by Gabriel Metsu. It’s his day today.

[Gareth Harney @OptimoPrincipi]

Greek bronze helmet from Magna Graecia with wings and a Phrygian peak with wave-shaped spikes, c.300 BC, Mougins Museum of Classical Art.

[WANA Visuals @wana_visualss]

A Mamluk enamelled and gilded glass beaker decorated with mythical and real birds. Made in Egypt or Syria, first half of the 14th century, now on display at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon