Kate Scanlan

My photo shows a museum display with colourful Minoan pottery cups arranged on three clear shelves, one above the other. These cups, known as Kamares Ware, are from Phaistos, Crete. They were made in palace workshops, c. 1800-1700 BC. The cups range in shape and size from conic and cylindrical cups (top and middle shelves) to hemispherical and carinated shaped cups (bottom shelf). They are decorated with multi-coloured geometric motifs; with spirals and swirls painted in red and white pigment on black.

Sipping my coffee ☕️ and thinking about these marvellous Minoan cups!

They look so modern it’s incredible to think they were made during the Bronze Age some 3,800 years ago!

Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. 📷 by me

#Archaeology

“In the first week of March the wind blows hard, swaying the reeds and bushes and bending the big trees beyond the lake to its cold breath.”

The first page of ‘What to Look for in Spring”
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
Writer: EL Grant Watson

I absolutely love his works and want you to see them too.
Ukrainian art deserves to be heard louder.

🇺🇦 Dmytro Nahurnyi (1946–2019)

🤎

Photo of side view of ceramic bust in white with blue floral patterning partly.and Mohawk style spikes on head neck and back

Juliette Clovis, contemporary French ceramic artist who works with porcelain #womensart

My photo shows a ‘roaring’ hippo statuette made of Egyptian blue faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz. The hippo is seated with head at left, and turned to front. The hippo’s original tusks (top incisors and lower canine teeth are known as tusks), are missing, so it looks as if the hippo is smiling. The blue body is decorated in black with Nile river plants such as water weed and lotus flowers. This decoration depicts the hippo’s marsh habitat as well as having layers of symbolism associated with regeneration e.g. lotus flowers open with the sun in the morning and close at night symbolising rebirth. Height 7.5 cm, length 12.5 cm. On display Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

A little blue hippo made by an Egyptian artisan around 4,000 years ago! 🦛 ❤️

Decorated with river plants and lotus flowers, blue faience hippos are associated with the life-giving Nile and rebirth. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. 📷 by me

#Archaeology

My photo shows a roughly square-shaped piece of limestone with a relief carving depicting a front facing owl on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This relief represents the ancient Egyptian owl hieroglyph ‘m’. Limestone plaque dimensions H. 10.3 x W. 11.1 x D. 2.5 cm

Happy #SuperbOwlSunday!

Here’s a lovely limestone plaque carved with the face of an owl!🦉😍

From Egypt, Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 400–30 BC.

Met Museum www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

📷 by me

#Archaeology

'Coffee and Friendship'
By Martina Heiduczek

My photo shows a hemispherical red pottery bowl with underside supports in the shape of a pair of human feet. It is handmade from red Nile clay, slipped and polished to give a light surface sheen. The front of the bowl tips slightly forward as if offering its contents. The museum catalogue entry informs us that a bowl standing on feet is very similar in form to the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "to bring." Dimensions: diameter 13.2 cm x width 13.7 cm x depth 9.8 cm. This type of bowl is dated to Predynastic Egypt, Late Naqada I-early Nagada lI period, circa 3700-3450 BC. I saw this bowl on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum purchased the bowl from M. Mohassib in Egypt in 1910.

To bring a smile to your face this weekend …

An ancient bowl with human feet!

Made in predynastic Egypt around 5,500 years ago.

The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

📷 by me

#Archaeology

"Blue Birds" by British illustrator Tracey English.

Gorgeous winter light in Edinburgh yesterday

#bruntsfield #edinburgh #architecture

As long as I can breathe, I’ll keep educating you about Ukraine

Today, 117 years since the birth of Maria Prymachenko (1909–1997), a renowned 🇺🇦 folk artist.

Few know her son and grandson were artists too: the first two works – by Maria,
the third – by her son Fedir,
the last – by her grandson Ivan

Print with three trees on a hill to the left and a large flock of flying birds above right in a tight formation in a blue sky

'Murmuration' by contemporary UK printmaker Hester Cox #WomensArt

Painting of red-crowned cranes (Grus japonensis) in a snowy, natural setting. The cranes are in dynamic postures, possibly engaged in their courtship dance.

Morning.
🖼️ Becca Stadtlander

Under a leaden sky, ducks are huddled together on a partially frozen silvery lake surrounded by reeds and bull rushes

‘At the edge of the mere’

Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
(What to Look for in Winter, 1959)

A stile and some red poppies. A picture I painted from a Terry Harrison watercolour teaching book. It conjures up a lovely summers day in the country.

Watercolour painting of a country scene in summer to ward off those winter blues. #art #watercolour #painting #summer

Two starlingson a sheep's back in the snow

Starlings in their fleecy slippers #Shetland #snow

Watercolour painting of some flowers to brighten up your day! #art #watercolours #painting

Textile collage reflecting an image of a winter forest with many tall thin tree trunks in icey ground and a rising sun on the horizon

'Winter trees' textile collage with #embroidery,
by UK textile artist Katy Rundle
#WomensArt

This is Ollie. He found a perfectly placed carrot snack on his walk. Simply can't believe his luck. 13/10 best day ever (TT: maxime_aries)

Watercolour painting of three fieldfares among a berry-covered winter hawthorn, with a vague vista of purple tree-covered hills behind them.

Fieldfares in the hawthorns at Sutton Bank, North Yorkshire (UK). These beautiful thrushes are winter visitors to the UK, though numbers vary. It’s impressive how such large, striking birds can almost vanish among a tangle of branches, berries and grey winter sky. Watercolour painting.
🐡🪶

Photo looking down on seven small stones of different shapes, colours and sizes, each has an individual painted design of a bird, trees or spots in black or white

Contemporary UK artist Natasha Newton's painted stones are inspired by landscape and nature #WomensArt

A large Carolingian gilded disc brooch intricately decorated with cloisonné inlay; that is tiny gold cells inlaid with semi-precious red almandine stones, white pearls, and red, white, green, and blue glass and enamel. The inlay is arranged to form a cross. At the centre of the brooch is a large oval red almandine in a gold fitting. Around the rim are four smaller almandines (one missing), four relatively large pearls, and sixteen smaller pearls. The brooch measures 8.5 centimetres in diameter. Large brooches like this were used to fasten a cloak, so this one was both functional and decorative. Analysis shows that the brooch was modified in antiquity. The remains of the attachment pin on the reverse was hammered flat to take small nails to attach the brooch to another object, perhaps a book or casket

Something lovely for the weekend!

The Dorestad Brooch, c. AD 800.

This beautiful Carolingian brooch was found at the bottom of a well in the Netherlands in 1969!

Gold inlaid with almandines, pearls, glass, and enamel. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden 📷 AlexanderVanLoon www.rmo.nl/en/collectio...

Woodland Sleeping Fox,
Watercolour painting.

#Fox #RedFox #AnimalArt #WildlifeArt #Wood #ForestAnimal #Watercolour #Art #Painting #ArtPrints #WildlifeGiftIdea

An illustration composed of four long panels, each one representing a season of the year, from spring to winter. Each panel shows the same suburban garden

It’s conventional on New Year’s Eve to do a review of the year.

The year I have decided to review is 1964.

(Artist: Ronald Lampitt, Look and Learn)

A white sheep with thick fleece standing to the right in a field of poppies and looking at the camera

🌹❤️

Elephant and Calf,
Watercolour painting.

#Elephant #Wildlife #Animal #WildlifeArt #Watercolour #Art #Painting #ElephantWallArt #ArtPrints #WildlifeGiftIdea

Today's theme for #FolkyFriday is 'gifts'. There is an old tale of the wren bringing fire to mankind. In its quest to get the flame, it became scorched by the sun. All the other birds gave the wren the gift of a feather as thanks, apart from the owl who refused.
Art my own.
#Folklore #Birds #MHHSBD

My photo collage shows a selection of bishop and warder chess pieces finely carved from creamish-coloured walrus ivory, dated c. 1150-1200 AD. Found in a large gaming hoard on the Isle of Lewis. On display at the British Museum. Photo top left: Two bishops and a warder. All standing. The bishops wear long garments, mitres, and hold a crozier with both hands. The bearded warder wears a long pleated garment and a conical helmet with neck and ear-pieces. He’s armed with a sword and kite-shaped shield inscribed with a lozenge shaped cross. Photo top right: A so-called ‘berserker’ warder chess piece. Standing, wearing a long garment and hood, armed with sword and a shield decorated with an interlaced saltire. The warder has large, wide-open eyes, and large upper teeth which bite the top of the shield. Height 8.2 cm. Photo bottom left: A standing warder and two seated bishops, one of which is partly obscured by the warder. The bearded warder wears a long pleated garment and conical helmet with neck and ear-pieces, is armed with sword and shield. The seated bishops wear long garments, mitres, and each holds a crozier and book. Photo bottom right: A warder and a bishop, both standing. The bearded warder wears a long pleated garment, and conical helmet with neck, ear-pieces and ornamented head-band. He is armed with a sword in right hand and kite-shaped shield in left hand. The bishop wears a long garment with cloak, and mitre, and holds a crozier in his left hand and a book in his right hand.

The Lewis Chessmen

These 12th-century chess pieces are packed with personality, and have such charmingly expressive eyes! ♟️ 👀

From a large gaming hoard discovered on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, in 1831.

📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

2 Mr Men books themed on Agatha Christie books. Mr Poirot in Mischief on the Nile and Little Miss Marple in Muddle at the Vicarage

'The perfect brand collaboration doesn't exist.'

Agatha Christie/Mr Men: