Printable Vintage Illustration: Searching for Clues, 1875

The truth must be quite plain, if one could just clear away the litter.
― Agatha Christie

She remembered what her old priest had said: a half-truth masquerading as a whole truth was nothing but an untruth. But half-truths were horseplay in Miranda, where big lies came quick and easy. And they were about to come a lot easier.
― Chad Boudreaux, Homecoming Queen

1875 illustration of a Victorian lady in a ball gown; she seems to be looking around for someone/something. You can download the high-res illustration as a 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Larger image size available for licensing. Please inquire.


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 Art: Girl Eating Soup by Albert Anker

Girl Eating Soup, 1898
by Albert Anker (1831–1910)

Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.
― Deborah Day

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 11" x 8.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: A Mother Looking at Her Child by Silvestro Lega

A Mother Looking at Her Child, 1884
by Silvestro Lega (1826–1895)

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.
― William Martin, The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 8" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Winter Afternoon, Riverside Park by George Wesley Bellows

Winter Afternoon, Riverside Park, 1909
by George Wesley Bellows (1882–1925)
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
― Benjamin Franklin

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give life a meaning.
― Jean-Paul Sartre

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 5" x 4" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustrations: Victorian Lady with Flowers in her Hair, 1868

whatever you do
be gentle with yourself.
you don’t just live
in this world
or your home
or your skin.
you also live
in someone’s eyes.
― Sanober Khan

Nothing is so strong as gentleness.
Nothing is so gentle as real strength.
― Ralph W. Sockman

1868 illustration of a Victorian lady with flowers in her hair (front and back views). You can download the high-res illustrations in one 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Larger image size available for licensing. Please inquire.


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 Art: Embroidery Woman by Georg Friedrich Kersting

Embroider Woman, 1817
by Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785–1847)

Have love for your inner Self and everything else is done for you.
― Amit Ray, Peace Bliss Beauty and Truth: Living with Positivity

Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.
― Leo Babauta

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 9" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Fashion Illustrations: Ladies with Muff and Stole, 1904

Be so warm that people mistake you for the sun; so bright that people mistake you for the stars; and so accommodating that people mistake you for the universe.
― Matshona Dhliwayo

If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.
― Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada

Antique illustrations of two Edwardian ladies in a muff and a stole, 1904. From my own collection. 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Larger size image available for licensing. Please inquire.


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 Art: Flower Still Life by Gustave Max Stevens

Flower Still Life, c1914
by Gustave Max Stevens (1871–1946)

She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.
― David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: After Sunset by Kitty Lange Kielland

After Sunset, 1886
by Kitty Lange Kielland (1843–1914)

Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.
― Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 11.5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustration: Escaping the Wildfire, 1883

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
― e.e. cummings

Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.
― Gerard Way

We all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment... I believe many people in those situations actually have made descisions years before.
― Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters

Antique illustration of four children escaping from a raging wildfire, 1883. From my own collection. 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Larger size image available for licensing. Please inquire.


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.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Donkey with Cart by Hanns Bolz

Donkey with Cart, 1903
by Hanns Bolz (1885-1918)

Being faithful in the smallest things is the way to gain, maintain, and demonstrate the strength needed to accomplish something great.
― Alex Harris

We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.
― Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life

The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
― J.R.R. Tolkien


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Interior from Paris by Harriet Backer

Interior from Paris, 1886
by Harriet Backer (1845–1932)

It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet.
― Dodie Smith

I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustrations: Sunday Morning, 1886

You never know these days. Uninvited guests may force you to take an unplanned trip to an unknown destination; doesn’t hurt to be in your Sunday clothes.
― Anurag Shourie, Half A Shadow

Sundays are like confetti floating in the air in slow motion, in the evening they reach the ground and you hope a bit of wind could blow on them so they could fly a bit longer.
― Alain Bremond-Torrent, running is flying intermittently

1886 illustration of two ladies in their Sunday best. You can download the high-res illustrations in one 6" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Larger image size available for licensing. Please inquire.


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.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Hydrangeas by Philip Wilson Steer

Hydrangeas, c1901 by Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942).
Oil on canvas. Public domain, colours enhanced.

The model for this painting was probably Miss Ethel Warwick, as may be deduced from a portrait of her in the National Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town, also of 1901, in which she is apparently wearing the same lace-edged jacket. Related drawings are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Steer sketchbooks. (Source: The Fitzwilliam Museum)

Ethel Warwick, 1924
Ethel Maude Warwick (1882–1951) who likely posed for the painting abov became an artists model to help pay for her tuition at the London Polytechnic where she herself was studying to be an artist. This led to her meeting Herbert Draper; Draper used her as a model for several of his paintings, including The Lament for Icarus. Through him she became a favoured model for several artists, including John William Godward and Linley Sambourne, for whom she posed nude in a series of photographic studies. She was also sketched by James McNeill Whistler.

Ethel Warwick, 1930

Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustration: Girl on a Bench, 1896

He looked at her. She was pretty still, with thick hair and soft eyes, and she moved so gracefully that it almost seemed as though she were gliding. He'd seen beautiful women before, though, women who caught his eye, but to his mind, they usually lacked the traits he found most desirable. Traits like intelligence, confidence, strength of spirit, passion, traits that inspired others to greatness, traits he aspired to himself.
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

1896 illustration of a girl on a bench from my own collection. You can download the high-res illustration as a 4.25" x 5.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Larger image size available for licensing. Please inquire.


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 Art: East River Park by William James Glackens

East River Park, c1902
by William James Glackens (1870–1938)

Walkers are 'practitioners of the city,' for the city is made to be walked. A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. Just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where one can walk, but the walker invents other ways to go.
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG. Please note this is a large file of roughly 30mb.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustration: The Snow, 1902

The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.
― e.e. cummings

Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.
― Mary Oliver

Originally a vintage ad from 1902 for Crème Simon lotion. You can see a large bottle of the face cream in the foreground on the coffee table. It is supposed to provide the best protection against snow and wind, hence the coquette standing in front of the open window.

You can download the high-res illustration as a 4.25" x 5.5" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Larger image size available for licensing. Please inquire.


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.