Free vintage illustration of a weaving loom (late 1800's)

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This cool piece of machinery is an antique industrial weaving loom (circa late 1800's).

Free Vintage Illustration of a Victorian "Gentleman"

The illustration above is the coarse, comic character Sir Harry of Nonsuch House from the satire Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, published in 1853. Mr. Sponge was the creation of Robert Smith Surtees, a sportswriter and author who had tried his hand at law before inheriting Hamsterley Hall in Durham and retiring into the life of a "gentleman of leisure."

Free Vintage Illustration of... a ROCKETMAN!

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Okay, not really a rocketman, burning out his fuse up here alone - it's an illustration of a proposed swimming apparatus from an 1881 patent application. But I'll never tell anyone if you want to use him as an illustration of someone who is hiiiiiiiigh... as a kite...

 

I had to link to the Shatner video. I just had to. The power of Kirk compels me.

Edward Gorey is today's Google Doodle!

Speak of the devil on your blog, and he appears - as a Google Doodle! Cult favorite illustrator and writer Edward Gorey is the most recent Google Doodle as today would have been his 88th birthday - he was born on February 22nd, 1925. Fun fact: Gorey only attended art school for one semester, leaving the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943. The Washington Post has a fun tribute to Gorey and his "playful macabre" up on their Comic Riffs blog, along with links to their ten favorite Google Doodles.

Free Vintage Illustrations of Maids, Servants, and a Man Cleaning House

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Pearline Soap had one of early advertising's great carpet-bombing-style campaigns, with Pearline ads appearing in newspapers and on (gorgeous) advertising trade cards quite pertinaciously from 1877 to 1907. The company was also one of early advertising's great disaster stories: in 1907, they decided that Pearline was such a household name that they no longer needed to advertise. Within a few years after they dropped their advertising campaign, Pearline was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, their salvation coming only when they were bought out by Proctor and Gamble in 1914. 

The "pretty maids, all in a row" above are from an 1890 ad - their buckets originally spelled out "Pearline," but I've worked a little Photoshop magic to make them more suitable for arts and crafts. 

This domestic goddess from a turn-of-the-last-century Pearline ad appeared next to the reassuring text "Simple - any servant can use it." Because, you know, Pearline users were mostly living Upstairs Downton Abbey-like lives of ease and leisure then, right? 
Here she is in more line-drawing fashion:

How about a MAN cleaning house? We don't see that often in ads ("or in real life!" I sense some of you tacking on in your heads).

But it only looks like he's about to get to scrubbin' - the copy from this 1894 ad reads, "Why can't a man's wife use Pearline for cleaning house, and let him keep comfortable?" Well, why not, indeed? Wives can be SO inconsiderate sometimes!

Free Vintage Illustrations from The World at Home (1868)

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The illustrations here come from a fantastic 1868 book called The World at Home, or Pictures and Scenes from Far-Off Lands, which was illustrated by Mary and Elizabeth Kirby of Things in the Forest fame. I love the attention to detail in the illustrations in this book. You have to click on the header above with the camel caravan; it's gorgeous. And just look at this magnificent engraving of the Aurora Borealis:

It's like the 1868 version of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. There are some spectacular engravings of animals, including this polar bear getting ready for a seal-sized snack:

The authors seemed fascinated by the polar regions, so we also have these illustrations of a seal posing on a rock,

seals and penguins in a landscape dominated by icebergs,

and Eskimos constructing an igloo:

Whale hunts in the Bad Old Days look spectacularly dangerous:

How about some Rider Ducks?

Incidentally, if you Google Rider Duck, you end up with this gem:

I don't think I want to know. Anyway! Back to the illustrations. There are some delightful little sketches at the beginning of most of the chapters. For example, here's a beautifully-decorated capital T from one of the chapter introductions: 

And here's an illustration of two sweet little birds on some foliage, which enhanced another chapter:

Birds are all the rage in illustrations and decorating, and while I love them, every time I see a sparrow-appliqued pillow or robin-print shirt, I giggle because it reminds me of the Portlandia sketch "Put a Bird On It": "What a sad little tote bag. I know - I'll put a bird on it!"

More from this book soon!

Free vintage illustration of a snowy day in the countryside (Victorian era)

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Today I picked a wintry image that depicts a young lad delivering a pheasant and rabbit to a kitchen maid. Everything about this image - the bare trees, snow-covered arbor, shaggy horse - says brrr! This illustration was done by W.E. Marshall, so it likely dates from the 1860s or 1870s. I haven't been able to turn up much about Marshall except that he is known for his engravings of Presidents Lincoln, Washington, and Grant.