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July 22, 2011

Persian Gulf & Fortune Cookie

persiangulf_fortunecookie.jpg

Caren Alpert takes amazing electron microscope images of food.
Above, is a fortune Cookie at 150x magnification.

>> View slideshow gallery of Caren Alpert's microscopic images of food

Posted by mehrdad at 11:44 AM | Look-alikes |

July 20, 2011

Yusuf and Zulaikha

Tiles depicting the story of Yusuf and Zulaikha
Iran, 2nd half of the 19th century, Qajar Period (1779 - 1925)
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

These tiles come from two different sets depicting the story of Yusuf and Zulaikha. Based on the Sura Yusuf, the 12th sura of the Qur'an, it originally derives from the story of Joseph and Potiphar?s wife in the Old Testament.

In the Qur?anic version, Yusuf is a handsome slave in the service of an Egyptian man. His master?s wife, named Zulaikha in later literature, attempts to seduce him unsuccessfully.

These tiles depict the episode of Yusuf?s appearance before the women of Memphis. Overcome by his beauty, they faint or cut themselves with the knives they hold in their hands!

>> View the set on Flickr

Posted by mehrdad at 08:12 AM | Art |

July 19, 2011

Rustic Figures & Animals


Rustic Figures & Animals, Shanghai province, 1985
By Cheng Shifa (1921 ? 2007), The Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford

Cheng Shifa (1921 ?2007) was a Chinese calligrapher, painter and cartoonist. He was born in a small Chinese village outside the city of Shanghai in 1921. He studied traditional Chinese painting at Shanghai Art Academy in the late 1930s, and subsequently earned a living through illustration. After visiting southwest China in the late 1950s he specialised in paintings of China?s national minorities. In 1956 he joined the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy, of which he later became a director. During the 1970s his attention turned to bird and flower painting.

>> View the set on Flickr

Posted by mehrdad at 08:56 AM | Art |

July 18, 2011

Turner in Oxford

turneroxford500.jpg

View of the High Street, Oxford, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1810, The Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford

>> View larger image

Posted by mehrdad at 09:46 AM | Photography | Then & Now |

July 16, 2011

Flower Sellers

Pebbly sculpture of flower sellers and sheep on London Fields, Hackney, London.

>> View the set on Flickr

Posted by mehrdad at 10:21 AM | London |

July 07, 2011

Queen Mary's Rose Garden

Queen Mary's Rose Garden in Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London

>> View the set on Flickr

Posted by mehrdad at 11:03 PM | London |