Introducing a new monthly column, where we feature five fun things that caught our attention, and one cool object. Because sometimes you just need a list, yeah? No extra verbiage.

5 Fun Things

1. Michealina Wautier at the MFA, Boston.
2. Much Ado about Vermeer: 3 contested Vermeer paintings included in the Rijksmuseum show as autograph works, and a JHNA special issue on Vermeer, ahead of the big 2023 Rijksmuseum show.
3. Listen to the Haptic and Hue episode on lacemakers.
4. Use ChatGPT to write a Saint’s Story in the style of the Golden Legend.
5. In memory of Peter Schjeldahl , who passed away in October, we revisit his piece, “Mortality and the Old Masters.” In this piece, written during the early surge of Covid19 in NYC, Schjeldahl considers what the Old Masters might have to teach us about mortality and death.

1 Cool Object

A 1,300-year-old necklace from the Harpole Treasury, recently discovered in England.

According to the Washington Post, “The jewelry piece, dating to between 630 and 670 AD, was discovered at a gravesite near Northampton this year […] The necklace contains 30 trinkets, including four garnets set in gold, five glass pendants, eight Roman gold coins, and 12 beads, all set around an intricate rectangular pendant marked with a cross motif.”

The necklace’s central pendant, with an archaeologist’s hands in the frame, for scale. Photo: Kin Cheung/AP.

Left: the components of the Harpole Treasure necklace, as it is today. Right: A reconstruction of what the Harpole Treasure necklace might have looked liked, when it was new. Images: Museum of London Archaeology.

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P.S. Here’s what ChatGPT wrote me: