Printable Vintage Photo for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Woman in Black Taffeta Dress and Lace Shawl, c1850

Woman in Black Taffeta Dress and Lace Shawl
by Albert Sands Southworth (1811–1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901)
of Southworth and Hawes Photography Studio (active 1843–1863)

I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

All I could think about as I stood there was that sometimes life gave you a tragedy that burned everything you knew to the ground and changed you completely. But somehow, if you really wanted to, you could learn how to hold your breath as you made your way through the smoke left in its wake and you could keep going. And sometimes, sometimes, you could grow something beautiful from the ashes that were left behind. If you were lucky.
― Mariana Zapata, Wait for It

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


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

Printable Vintage Illustration: A Good Listener, 1892

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
― Ernest Hemingway

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

Illustration of Victorian ladies at a social gathering; the lady in the middle quietly listening to the conversation being held by the two women on either side of her. You can download this high-res illustration as a 10” x 8.75” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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 Illustration: Ladies with Documents (Set1)

So. Tell me. What do you think? Which is better?
To take action and perhaps make a fatal mistake
- or to take no action and die slowly anyway?
― Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love

On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information
needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits.
And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over.
This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.
― Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader
Vintage illustrations from 1890s showing three Victorian ladies mulling over/holding documents in their hands. Could be long, newsy letters or possibly contracts? They seem to be giving the women food for thought! You can download these high-res illustrations as a 7” x 11” @ 300 ppi JPEG (top) and a 9” x 6” @ 300 ppi JPEG (bottom) 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 Illustration: Victorian Ladies with Parasols 10

To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.
― Dejan Stojanovic

Vintage illustration from 1896 showing two Victorian ladies walking arm-in-arm, with one lady holding an umbrella over her shoulder. You can download the high-res illustration as an 8” x 11” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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 Victorian Illustration for Collage, Graphic Design or Scrapbooking: Victorian Lady in Plumed Hat and Ruffled Collar 1

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

Most men claim to desire driven, independent and confident women. Yet when confronted with such a creature, reverence often evolves into resent. For just like women, men need to be needed.
― Tiffany Madison

Antique illustration of a Victorian lady in a plumed hat and an oversized ruffled collar from 1896. High-res 7" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for collage, graphic design or scrapbooking projects.


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 Victorian Illustrations for Collage, Graphic Design or Scrapbooking: Capes, 1890s (Set 1)

The storm starts, when the drops start dropping
When the drops stop dropping then the storm starts stopping.
― Dr. Seuss

When all is said and done, the weather and love
are the two elements about which one can never be sure.
― Alice Hoffman, Here on Earth

Two illustrations of ladies in rainy weather capes, ready for their promenades. High-res 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for collage, graphic design or scrapbooking projects.


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 Illustrations: Victorian Women with Offerings (Set 1)

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
― Charles Dickens

If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

Illustrations of two Victorian women, one with a small bowl of offering in her hand, the other with a small cup. You can download these two high-res illustrations in one 6” x 6” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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 Illustrations: Victorian Women with Little Black Books (Set 1)

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.
― Margaret Fuller

I'm rather ashamed of my plans; I make a new one every day.
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

An unbreakable mask and cunning are the keys for executing a plan flawlessly.
― Imania Margria, Eyes

Two vintage illustrations from 1892 showing Victorian women with little black books. You can download these two 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.

Printable Vintage Illustration: A Chaperoned Tryst, 1896

It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything. In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened between us earlier and I could feel something inside me break. So that was that. We were finally, finally over. I looked at him, and I felt so sad, because this thought occurred to me: “I will never look at you the same way again. I'll never be that girl again. The girl who comes running back every time you push her away, the girl who loves you anyway.”
I couldn’t even be mad at him, because this was who he was. This was who he’d always been. He’d never lied about that. He gave and then he took away. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, the familiar ache, that lost, regretful feeling only he could give me. I never wanted to feel it again. Never, ever. Maybe this was why I came, so I could really know. So I could say good-bye. I looked at him, and I thought, “If I was very brave or very honest, I would tell him.”
I would say it, so he would know it and I would know it, and I could never take it back. But I wasn’t that brave or honest, so all I did was look at him. And I think he knew anyway. “I release you. I evict you from my heart. Because if I don't do it now, I never will.” I was the one to look away first.
― Jenny Han, It's Not Summer Without You

Antique illustration of a Victorian lady having a tryst with a handsome gentleman in military costume while accompanied by a strict chaperon; originally published 1896. You can download the high-res illustration as an 12” x 7” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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 Victorian Template (Illustrated Header): Waiting in the Parlour, 1896

If pain must come, may it come quickly.
Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible.
If he has to make a choice, may he make it now.
Then I will either wait for him or forget him.
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is “timing”
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.
― Fulton J. Sheen
Victorian illustration of a lady waiting on a chair in a parlour from 1896.Do you think it may have been in a grand parlour such as this one?

Salon im Makartstil
by Georg Janny (1864–1935)

You can download the high-res black and white illustrated header as a 5.5” x 7” @ 300 ppi JPEG here. You can find the watercolour painting of the salon as it was originally published here or if you would like to download my digitally enhanced version, you can find it as a 10” x 6.25” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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 Illustration: Lost in Thought, 1896

She was always daydreaming. She never wanted to live in the real world; she always seemed to be separated from other children her age. They couldn’t understand her or her imagination. She was always thinking outside of the box, breaking rules, and only following what her heart told her was right.
― Shannon A. Thompson, November Snow

There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.
― Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

Antique illustration of a Victorian lady lost in reverie from 1896. You can download the high-res illustration as an 4” x 7.5” @ 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 Victorian Fashion Illustration: Lady in Summer Dress of White Muslin, 1876

‘Life and summer are fleeting,’ sang the bird. ‘Snow and dark, and the winter comes. Nothing remains the same.’
― Elyne Mitchell, Silver Brumby's Daughter

Her fragility makes her uncomfortable, but it has a familiarity, too, like the biting cold of winter that you only half forget during other seasons.
― Meg Donohue, All the Summer Girls

Antique fashion illustration from 1876 of a Victorian lady in a summer dress of white muslin. You can download the high-res illustration as a 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 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 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 Illustration: The Three Judges, 1896

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.
― Michel de Montaigne

That's why I'm talking to you. You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

1896 illustration of three sombre-looking Victorian ladies in business-like attire. You can download the high-res illustration as a 4” x 4” @ 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.

Free Vintage Clipart for Collage, Scrapbooking or Papercrafts: Spring Sunshine

Like a favorite song, old dreams keep on playing in my mind
They've waited for so long, for their time to finally arrive
I do believe now's the time,
I've gone years and years without really living
Minding squeaky wheels just giving and giving
And dreaming,
Like wildflowers growing through sidewalk cracks
The weight of the world makes 'em change their tracks
To find, the sun, and shine
Now, now, now's the time.
― Marie Helen Abramyan

Antique illustration from c1897 of a Victorian lady pulling a curtain aside to enjoy a spot of spring sunshine. High-res 8.5” x 11” @ 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 Vintage Clipart for Altered Art, Junk Journaling, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: From Winter Into Spring

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
― Rumi

Late 19th century illustration showing a Victorian lady in a transforming landscape, from winter into spring. You can download the watercolour drawing as a high-res 10” x 8” @ 300 ppi JPEG 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.