Wikipedia:Picture of the day/April 2011

A 1513 portrait of an unknown Duchess, possibly Margaret, Countess of Tyrol, by Flemish painter Quentin Matsys. She holds a red flower in her right hand, at the time a symbol of engagement, indicating that she is trying to attract a suitor. This portrait inspired the appearance of the Duchess in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The portrait is Matsys' best-known work, and formed half of a diptych. The painting is in the National Gallery in London.

The

Engraving: I. H. Jones; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

The

Yumedono ("Hall of Dreams"), a building in the Hōryū-ji Buddhist temple complex in Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, Japan. The hall, which was built in 739, acquired its common name in the Heian period, in keeping with a legend that says a Buddha arrived as Prince Shōtoku, who had originally commissioned the temple, and meditated in a hall that existed there.

Photo: Frank J. Gualtieri, Jr.

The

Photo: Ryan Kaldari

A

Artist: William Simpson; Restoration: Lise Broer

The flower of a morning glory plant (Ipomoea nil species pictured). "Morning glory" is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants. Most morning glory flowers curl up and close during the warm parts of the day, and are fully open in the morning, thus their name, although some, such as Ipomoea muricata, are night blooming flowers.

Photo: Frank J. Gualtieri Jr.

Photo: Mila Zinkova

The mansion at Wakehurst Place in Ardingly, West Sussex, England. The house is a late 16th-century gentry house that was the residence of Gerald Loder, 1st Baron Wakehurst, who was largely responsible for the garden. He spent 33 years developing the gardens, which take up about two square kilometres (500 acres). The property belongs to the National Trust and is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Photo: David Iliff

Pholiota malicola is a species of fungus in the Strophariaceae family of mushrooms. All of the 1,316 species in this group are saprotrophs, growing on various kinds of decaying organic matter.

Photo: JJ Harrison

A c. 1890

Artist: Unknown; Restoration: Lise Broer

A

Photo: Paul Rudd

The

A robber fly (Pegesimallus species shown), an insectivorous insect, feeding on a beetle. There are about 7,100 species of robber flies, all of which use a proboscis to stab and inject victims with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes that paralyze and digest the insides; the fly then sucks the liquefied meal through the proboscis.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

The

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

The poilu's holiday, December 25 and 26, 1915, a French World War I poster depicting a poilu's Christmas leave from the war. "Poilu", literally meaning "hairy one", is a nickname for French infantrymen. The word carries the sense of the infantryman's typically rural, agricultural background. Beards and bushy moustaches were often worn. The image of the dogged, bearded French soldier was widely used in propaganda and war memorials.

Artist: Adolphe Willette; Restoration: Lise Broer

The Admiralty Extension, built in the late 19th century, is the largest of

Photo: David Iliff

A Hamatsa

Photo: Edward S. Curtis; Restoration: Lise Broer

A depiction of entertainment in

A panoramic view of Grote Werf, a community in the municipality of Waterland, located on the Marken peninsula in the Netherlands. Marken is a tourist attraction, well-known for its characteristic wooden houses. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway and was a separate municipality until 1991, when it was merged into Waterland.

Photo: Massimo Catarinella

Restoration: Adam Cuerden

The

Concretions on Bowling Ball Beach in Mendocino County, California. A concretion is a volume of sedimentary rock in which a mineral cement fills the spaces between the sediment grains, usually forming an ovoid or spherical shape. This normally occurs early in the burial history of the sediment, before the rest of the sediment is hardened into rock.

Photo: Mila Zinkova

A sketch of the Andes in Peru, drawn by Alfred Agate during the United States Exploring Expedition, an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean conducted by the U.S. Navy from 1838 to 1842. The expedition was of major importance to the growth of science in the United States, in particular the then-young field of oceanography.

Restoration: Lise Broer

A view of the

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Grant from West Point to Appomattox, an 1885 lithograph by

Restoration: Adam Cuerden

Photo: JJ Harrison

A

Map: Johannes Vingboons; Restoration: Lise Broer

A woodcut engraving by English illustrator Randolph Caldecott for the nursery rhyme and cumulative tale "This Is the House That Jack Built", which appeared in an 1887 book of children's stories. The poem does not actually tell the story of Jack building a house, but instead shows how the house is indirectly linked to numerous things and people. It is believed to date back to the mid-sixteenth century, but the first printed edition was in 1755.

Restoration: Lise Broer