13 Things I Found on the Internet (Vol. 770)

1. Crazy about these Mixed Media Collages

Find the designer Anton Elfilter here. Found via Moss & Fog.

2. The Worldwide Sidewalk Joy Map

Sidewalk Joy spots are free, curated public galleries, exchanges and displays. Installed in curb gardens, front yards or sides of buildings these projects were created to bring a bit of whimsy and inspiration to the community.

Start exploring here (found on Swiss Miss).

3. Caricatures by Claude Monet

One of the most snubbed artforms by the master himself:

At the age of fifteen, Claude Monet was, by his own account, one of the most successful artists in Le Havre. Crowds would gather in the Norman port city to gawk at the pictures he sold through a framing shop: not paintings of haystacks or of the sea or water lilies, but slightly cruel caricatures of local bigwigs and minor celebrities. He had already learned to commercialize, charging his customers 20 francs (around 200€ in today’s money). “If I had continued”, he claimed to an interviewer in Le Temps almost fifty years later, “I would have been a millionaire.”

Public Domain Review.

4. Someone should make a movie about Timothy Dexter

His Wikipedia page is one of the most amusing and curious pages I’ve come across. A few highlights:

• Dexter was an eccentric 18th century American Merchant known for his apparent stupidity. He regularly followed bad advise only to earn a profit by pure luck.
• a self-proclaimed God, he faked his own death with an elaborate mock funeral with 3,000 people to see their reactions. When he saw his wife wasn’t crying, he woke up furious and caned her in public.
• He also frequently told visitors that his wife (who was alive) had died, and that the woman frequenting the building was simply her ghost.
• He wrote a book A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, a book that contained 8847 words but no punctuation.
• He decorated his mansion with a mausoleum for himself and a garden of 40 wooden statues of famous men, including George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson, and himself, with the inscription, “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World”.

Found on Wikipedia.

5. If Wikipedia was a city

6. Cosplayers with their Families

A truly unique angle on a much-documented subject, by visual artist Vik Muniz.

7. This Railway Balancing Act from the 1900s

8. Inside the private collection that lives at the v&a museum

One of the largest-ever gifts to the British public, the Gilbert Collection—an assembly of over 1,000 objects, spanning gold boxes to micromosaics — has its own endowment, board of trustees and, this March, newly expanded galleries.

9. Inside the FIT Museum’s Mannequin Storage Room

10. One of Napoleon’s Sweaty Hats, Rediscovered After a Century in Storage

One of these hats has been rediscovered after an absence of more than a century by curators at the Condé Museum, which is located inside Château de Chantilly, 25 miles north of Paris. The bicorne entered the museum’s collection in the early 20th century, but was archived and forgotten until last year, when it was rediscovered during preparations for an upcoming exhibition on Napoleon’s legacy. Following an extensive provenance study, the hat was presented to the media on March 26.

Over the course of his roughly two-decade career, Napoleon is believed to have ordered between 60 and 80 bicornes—fun fact: unlike most of his military contemporaries, Napoleon wore his bicorne sideways, which made him easily recognizable to his soldiers. Roughly 15 bicornes have been authenticated by experts with most held in the collections of French museums.

Found on Le Monde.

11. For sale: A Section of the Eiffel Tower’s Original Staircase

Measuring 2.75 metres in total height (2.60 metres to the landing) and 1.75 metres in diameter, this structure made of steel and riveted sheet metal, with 14 steps resting on a cross-shaped base, was part of the spiral staircase that once allowed visitors to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower.

This piece, section no. 1 of the staircase connecting the second and third floors, is estimated at €120,000 – 150,000. Seems like a good deal doesn’t it?!

Found on Artcurial.

12. And Just Like That… Carrie Bradshaw’s Life Hits the Auction Block

More than 500 costumes and props (including Mr. Big’s Funeral Place Cards) from the Max Original series are up for sale at Julien’s Auctions. Have a browse through the lots here.

13. Has Taking the Perfect Photo Ruined Tourism?