This photo of Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis 🤍🕯️

Catherine’s polo style is always a slay🤩 #PrincessofWales

If you like paintings of the ocean then you'll love Ivan Aivazovsky — he was the most famous seascape artist of the 19th century. What made him so good? Aivazovsky realised that the key to painting the sea wasn't the waves...

And the governor, with his connections to the establishment and nobility of the Russian Empire, helped send Aivazovsky to the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. There he studied with the French maritime artist Philippe Tanneur, who painted things like this:

It was a meteoric rise for Aivazovsky, who won prizes as a student and graduated early. In 1840 the Academy sent him to study in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, Venice, and Rome. It was in Rome that he met JMW Turner, the aging English master of Romantic art:

In Rome Pope Gregory XVI bought a painting by Aivazovsky called Chaos, which depicts God dividing the waters. But the Pope would be only one of the many influential patrons who supported Aivazovsky as he surely but not-so-slowly became Europe's greatest maritime painter.

Upon returning to Russia he was appointed as the official artist of the Imperial Navy. Thus he could indulge his oldest passion — the ocean — by travelling with and painting the fleet. And experiencing the sea and the navy up close only made him an even better painter.

the wales ♡

Loved this mint Self-Portrait dress on the Princess of Wales 💚✨

Urban planners have known this for centuries. Thus when Paris was almost entirely redesigned in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann, he decided that its new avenues should radiate out from the Arc de Triomphe. It would become the metaphorical and literal heart of the city.