Free Printable Vintage Illustration for Mixed-Media Collage, Journaling, Papercrafts or Wall Art: Conversation in a Café, 1893

Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
― Anais Nin

How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it.
How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it.
How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em.
How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em.
― Shel Silverstein

Antique illustration of two Victorian ladies enjoying a meal and warm conversation in a Parisian café. Image was originally published in 1893 and was captioned "Entre Amies" (With Friends).

Free to download for use in mixed-media collage, journaling, and various papercrafts projects or simply print and frame as wall art. You can find the high-res 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Victorian Ladies in Party Gowns, 1892

People of our time are losing the power of celebration.
Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.
Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.
To be entertained is a passive state
― it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle....
Celebration is a confrontation,
giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

Two Victorian young women in formal dinner gowns, standing in a formal foyer or reception area. Originally published in 1892. You can download the 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Free Printable Vintage Illustration for Mixed-Media Collage, Journaling, Papercrafts or Wall Art: A Stitch in Time Saves Nine, 1866

If you choose to not deal with an issue,
then you give up your right of control over the issue
and it will select the path of least resistance.
― Susan Del Gatto

The sooner a problem is recognized and acted upon
– the less damage there is.
― Mozammel Khan

Antique engraving from an 1866 issue of Peterson's Magazine. This vintage illustration shows a Victorian mother tenderly coaching her daughter in repairing a torn skirt.The original caption that appeared with the picture was "A Stitch in Time Saves Nine."

Free to download for use in mixed-media collage, journaling, and various papercrafts projects or simply print and frame as wall art. You can find the high-res 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Victorian Ladies After Dinner, 1866

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.
― Christina Rossetti

And, at such a time, for a few of us there will always be a tugging
at the heart — knowing a precious moment had gone and we not there.
We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever
— the way things looked, that church alone in the fields,
a bed on belfry floor, a remembered voice, a loved face.
They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
― J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country
Printable vintage fashion illustration from an 1866 issue of Peterson's showing a gathering of five Victorian ladies in the drawing room after dinner. One of the ladies is sitting by the window looking melancholy, causing another lady (possibly a relative or close friend) to look at her with some concern.

Download and use in various altered art, graphic design, papercrafts, scrapbooking or wall art projects. You can find the free high-res 12" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Together We Stand, 1892

I'd rather be standing here with you than out there without you.
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, From Blood and Ash

Life teaches us to
Bend like the willow during a storm
Glide like an eagle
Under the sun mighty and warm
But to stand together
No matter the weather
Unity is all for the better
― Marie Helen Abramyan

Two Victorian young women in double-breasted outfits, an arm around each other, standing on a balcony, and looking fearlessly out at the world. Originally published in 1892. You can download the 8" x 12.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Fashion History Illustrations: A Trio of Winter Fashions, 1896

Solace can be measured in the quiet silence between heartbeats.
― Anthony T. Hincks

Winter Jacket and Cape - 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG (1st link below)

✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾

Some women are truly beautiful. The light of love shines through their souls.
And the world gets drenched in their inimitable light of love.
But do not try to dominate them. Let them keep their softness and tenderness.
― Avijeet Das

The Butterfly Sleeve - 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG (2nd link below)

✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾✾

You see, women are like fires, like flames.
Some women are like candles, bright and friendly.
Some are like single sparks,
or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights.
Some are like campfires,
all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after.
Some women are like hearthfires,
not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal
that burns a long, long while.
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Cloth Dress with Velvet Bands - 6" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG (3rd link below)
A trio of delicate ink and wash illustrations featuring Victorian ladies in winter fashions of 1896. The designs featured are: a winter jacket and a winter cape, the butterfly sleeve, and a cloth dress with velvet bands. You can download the high-res JPEGs without a watermark here (Link 1), here (Link 2), and here (Link 3).


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Travel Companions, 1893

But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned.
I don't want to know what people are talking about.
I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder
than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.
Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything,
you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work,
you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life.
Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
Two Victorian ladies in travel costumes; originally published in 1893. You can download the high-res 8.5" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Edwardian Ladies by the River, 1904

Advice is a dangerous gift,
even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient.
Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything,
don't get desperate or blow a fuse
and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone.
You have to realize it's going to be a long process
and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time.
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Two Edwardian ladies in conversation as they pause to look at a grand castle across the river; from 1904. From my personal collection of La Mode Illustrée. You can download the high-res 9" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: A Tender Correspondence, 1860

Whatever you choose for your stationery is your favorite color
because it's where you pour your heart out.
― Mary E. Pearson, The Miles Between

It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars.
And I love you, I love you, I love you ―
and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over,
can be created – out of five vowels and three consonants.
― Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Vera
Vintage fashion illustration of two Victorian ladies dressed in walking dresses, one in purple, the other is a soft dove gray. The lady in purple is intently reading a letter. Originally published c1860.

Download and use in various altered art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Winter Fashions, 1866

Winter teetered on the verge of succumbing to the returning sun,
but today the breeze still preferred the touch of snowflakes.
― Rue, An Average Curse

One can follow the sun, of course,
but I have always thought that it is best to know some winter, too,
so that the summer, when it arrives, is the more gratefully received.
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

Printable vintage fashion illustration from an 1866 issue of Peterson's showing a gathering of four ladies in a variety of winter fashions. Two of the ladies on the far left are looking outside the window at a group of boys rowdily playing on the ice in the front yard. A young girl in an embroidered black and white outfit is cuddling a puppy in her arms as the puppy's mama looks up at them in concern.

Download and use in various altered art, graphic design, papercrafts, scrapbooking or wall art projects. You can find the free high-res 12" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.