These two statues show a jolly market woman talking to a jolly police constable in some jolly earlier century of Koblenz’s history. Below the statues there is a plaque with a jolly verse in the local dialect, saying that the market woman is complaining to the constable about a neighbor Read More …
Salome was the daughter of Herodias and the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. Her story is told in the Bible (Mark 6:21-28): And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Read More …
In October 2013 the Rodin Museum presented an exhibition of twenty-two sculptures of Camille Claudel (1864-1943), including some that had not been on display for several years during the ongoing renovation of the museum. The exposition’s introductory brochure said that Camille Claudel “has become an almost too familiar figure today: Read More …
It’s a nice coincidence that Saverio Mercadante’s name ends in -dante, because it was the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) who saved Mercadante’s opera heroine Francesca da Rimini from being totally forgotten. As the dramaturge Mareike Wink writes in the Frankfurt program booklet to Mercadante’s opera, “if Dante hadn’t immortalized her Read More …
If you come to Zürich in the summer months (July-October), starting in 2025, you might be able to visit the workshop of the Swiss sculptor Hermann Haller at Höschgasse 8a, near the eastern shore of Lake Zürich. At other times of year you can take a peek through the window, Read More …
The S-Printing Horse is said to be the largest horse sculpture in the world. It seems to have left two footprints or rather hoofprints in the pavement in front of the Print Media Academy, so when you come out of the central train station in Heidelberg you could cross the Read More …
This Old Main Bridge was built from 1473-1543 (a mere seventy years), to replace an earlier bridge which had been destroyed. Here’s a wider view of Würzburg, with the Old Main Bridge in the middle. The name of the river that flows through Würzburg is the Main, which is pronounced Read More …
For 466 years, from 1253 to 1719, the Prince-Bishops who ruled this part of Lower Franconia lived up in the (easily defendable) Marienberg Fortress overlooking Würzburg and the Main River Valley. It wasn’t until 1720 that one of them felt secure enough to start building the Residenz down in the Read More …
The neo-classical Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) occupies the entire south side of Place Stanislas in Nancy. In the exact mid-point of the square is the statue of Stanislas himself, facing north. The statue, dated 1831, is dedicated to “Stanislas, the benefactor” from “the thankful Lorraine”. On the other side Read More …
Neptune, the Roman god of the sea (Poseidon to the ancient Greeks), is featured in an elaborate set of fountains at the northwest corner of Place Stanislas, next to the Fine Arts Museum in Nancy. Details of these fountains were featured in the videos used in the opera production of Lully’s Read More …