Printable Vintage Fashion Illustration: Fashionable Hats for Autumn and Winter, 1870s

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
― Oscar Wilde

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.
― Frederick Buechner
French fashion illustration from the 1870s showing fashionable hats (and head covering) for fall (autumn) and winter. You can download the high-res illustration as an 8" 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: Ladies' Autumn Toilette, 1878

A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes;
the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours,
the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence,
the sun growing colder like our affections,
the rivers becoming frozen like our lives
-- all bear secret relations to our destinies.
― François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe

1878 fashion history illustration of Gilded Age ladies parading their autumn toilette on the terrace of a grand mansion. You can download the high-res illustration as a 7" x 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 Vintage Fashion Illustration: Her Sunday Best 1 (1864)

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.
― L.M. Montgomery

Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
― Oliver Herford

Antique fashion illustration from 1864 of a young Victorian lady dressed in her Sunday best. You can download the high-res illustration as an 11” x 8.5” @ 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 Fashion Illustration: A Formal Introduction 1

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

Because the difference between a friend and a real friend is that you and the real friend come from the same territory, of the same place deep inside you, and that means you see the world in the same kind of way. You know each other even before you do.
― Laura Pritchett, Sky Bridge

Antique fashion illustration from 1896 of two Victorian ladies meeting in a formal setting. You can download the high-res illustration as an 8” x 10” @ 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: Madame Memessiére et Son Fils (Mrs Memessiére and Her Son)

Madame Memessiére et Son Fils (Mrs Memessiére and Her Son)
by Joseph Paul Mesle (1855–1929)
Your son. From nought to five he is your master, from five to ten your servant, from ten to fifteen your secret counsellor, and after that, your friend - or your enemy.
― Tim Parks, An Italian Education

I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide... Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and *be* fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.
― Madeleine L'Engle

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 Fashion Illustration: Lady in Frosted Taffeta 1

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.
― Rumi

To be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself
from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals.
― Michael Bassey Johnson

Antique fashion illustration from 1896 of a Victorian lady in frosted taffeta. 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: Choosing by George Frederic Watts

Choosing or A Portrait of Ellen Terry, c1864
by George Frederic Watts (1817–1904)

In the end that was the choice you made,
and it doesn't matter how hard it was to make it.
It matters that you did.
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

As much money and life as you could want!
The two things most human beings would choose above all
― the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely
those things that are worst for them.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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.