Nicolas de Nicolay was a French soldier, geographer, and artist who traveled to the Ottoman Empire at the behest of King Henry II of France (1519–1559) as both a geographer and a spy. His travelogue/survey of the Ottoman Empire was first published in French in 1567 and, considered the first authoritative source of information about the Ottoman Empire for westerners, was often reprinted. In 1565, he was assigned by Henry II’s widow, Catherine de’ Medici (1519–1589), to survey the provinces of the French kingdom.
This depiction of a Jewish merchant is from a travelogue by French geographer Nicolas Nicolay, who is believed to have also done his own illustrations. Considered at the time a key source of…
The pen-on-paper Tu tournes lentement, an example of surrealist automatic painting, depicts women and fragmented humanoid shapes in dance-like movement. It was drawn by Paul Păun during World War II…
This elaborate Italian kabbalistic manuscript depicts the inner processes of the divine (the sefirot) in the shape of a tree (in Hebrew, ilan), or tree of life. Visualization plays an important part…