Joseph Ducreux was an eighteenth-century French painter who made self-portraits in exaggerated, mime-like poses that were rare for his time. Among them are Surprise in Terror, with a raised hand and open mouth, and The Silence, with a finger pressed to pursed lips. Born in Nancy in 1735, he was a minor aristocrat who emigrated to London during the Revolution and returned to Paris in 1793. Ducreux mainly painted portraits, but his self-portraits treated the face as theatre. They were mixed in his lifetime, then revived online, where a 2009 image was captioned with rap lyrics as a joke about archaic speech.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.