The Public Domain Review
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social
23K followers 120 following 800 posts
Online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. Featuring 300+ essays — ✍️ submissions welcome. We also have a mighty fine prints shop. https://publicdomainreview.org
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publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Replace these “wireless telegraphs” with smartphones, update the dress a little, and this vision of "isolating technology" from a 1906 issue of Punch magazine could easily be from today: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-vision-of-isolating-technology-from-1906
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
A man stares out over the fertile olive groves of Gaza, ca. 1911.

One of 125 photographs of life in Palestine before the British Mandate, ca. 1896–1919, we gathered from the collections of @librarycongress.bsky.social and others: publicdomainreview.org/collection/p...
A stereoscopic photograph showing a man in traditional dress standing among prickly pear cacti on a hillside, overlooking the cultivated fields and scattered trees of Gaza, Palestine. The landscape stretches into the distance with the town visible on the horizon. Published by Underwood & Underwood around the early 20th century.
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
A small pamphlet (in the Roycroft series “Little journeys to the homes of great musicians”) on the life of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, who was born #onthisday in 1813. Read it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-pamphlet-on-verdi-1901 #otd
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Were public toilet walls the @Twitter of the 18th century? Maximillian Novak on how a little-known book of “latrinalia” offers a unique and fascinating window into Georgian life: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/tales-from-the-boghouse
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Croatian Tales of Long Ago — a seminal collection of short stories by the acclaimed children's author Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić. The illustrations in this 1922 edition are by Croatian artist Vladimir Kirin: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/croatian-tales-of-long-ago-1922
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Created with "those who would speak with ease and elegance" in mind, this book from 1846 offers detailed insight about the various postures of the mouth: publicdomainreview.org/collection/t...
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Cat beating a drum: one of a motley crew of anthropomorphic animals to be found adorning the lower margins of a finely illuminated "book of hours" produced in late 13th-century England. More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/m...
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
NEW ESSAY — Dobrota Pucherová on René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences (1783), the first Slovak novel, partially banned upon publication and translated into English for the first time this year — publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-ad...
A hand-colored 19th-century-style print of two people in traditional Alpine folk dress: a seated woman in a red-trimmed bodice, orange jacket, and blue skirt holds a ceramic jug, while a man in a broad hat, short tunic, embroidered sash, and cape stands beside a stream. Pine trees and mountains rise behind them, with two smaller figures dancing in the distance.
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
A few of the seven etchings that comprise Käthe Kollwitz's Peasants’ War series (ca. 1901–1908) about the innate dignity, courage, and strength of the poor. More in our latest post here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kollwitz-peasants-war/
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
It's #WorldOctopusDay! Pictured here a “Polypus levis Hoyle” from a 1910 publication on the German Deep-Sea Expedition of 1898, led by Leipzig University Professor of Zoology, Carl Chun. Buy it as a print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/octopus/
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Collection of twenty short "prose-songs" (as the Foreword declares them), from the French writer Marcel Schwob. These surreal, hallucinatory little sketches are Schwob's unique take on 3rd century BCE Greek poet Herodas' then-newly discovered mimes: publicdomainreview.org/collection/m...
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
#OnThisDay in 1849, Edgar Allan Poe passed away under mysterious circumstances. Of all the artists who gave life to Poe's macabre tales over the years, perhaps none captured them quite so brilliantly as the Irish artist Harry Clarke: publicdomainreview.org/collection/h... #OTD #EdgarAllanPoe
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Writhing scene of grotesque heads (ca. 1520) by Daniel Hopfer, a German artist who is widely believed to have been the first to use etching in printmaking.

One of 900+ prints available to buy from our online shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/grotesque-decoration-with-animal-heads/
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Illustrations of jellyfish from A. G. Mayer’s Medusae of the World (1910) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/mayer-medusae
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
“Laughter in the Time of Cholera” — Political instability, popular unrest, and an impending pandemic? Welcome to 1830s France. Vlad Solomon explores what made Parisiens laugh in a moment of crisis through the prism of a vaudeville play: publicdomainreview.org/essay/l...
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Medicine Man, Performing His Mysteries over a Dying Man, 1832, by the American artist George Catlin, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Featured in our essay “The Long, Forgotten Walk of David Ingram” — https://buff.ly/2QZcWIB
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Dripping Mushroom, a 1916 woodcut by the Dutch graphic artist and painter Julie de Graag.

One of 900+ prints available to buy from our online shop: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/dripping-mushroom/

publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Illustration from Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652). Compiled and edited by antiquary extraordinaire Elias Ashmole, it is perhaps the seminal volume of English alchemical literature. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/theatrum-chemicum
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
#SundayReads: After the intro of gin to England, tipplers reported a range of effects: frenzy, madness, joy, and death. With the help of prints by George Cruikshank, William Hogarth, and others, James Brown explores the spaces in which it was consumed: publicdomainreview.org/essay/l...
Reposted by The Public Domain Review
pdimagearchive.bsky.social
From Shin-Bijutsukai (1902).

Source: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/6bd436ec-f36e-4063-830b-c92bd9964fe9

#abstract #japan #patterns #shin-bijutsukai #design #art #publicdomain
Kimono design pattern
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
#OnThisDay in 1713, Denis Diderot was born. Read Philipp Blom on the importance of the French thinker's philosophical writings and how they offer a pertinent alternative to the Enlightenment cult of reason spearheaded by Rousseau and Voltaire: publicdomainreview.org/essay/a... #OTD
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Read the letters of the writer and musician Ignatius Sancho (c.1729–1780), the first known Black Briton to vote in a British election, and the first person of African descent known to be given an obituary in the British press: publicdomainreview.org/collection/l... #BlackHistoryMonth
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
The tragic story of James Tilly Matthews, a former peace activist of the Napoleonic Wars confined to Bedlam asylum in 1797 for believing that his mind was under the control of the “Air Loom” — a terrifying machine which was brainwashing politicians: publicdomainreview.org/essay/i...
publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Happy birthday Buster Keaton! Born #onthisday in 1895. Watch his silent classic The General from 1926: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-general-1926
Reposted by The Public Domain Review
pdimagearchive.bsky.social
A Hungry Cat (null) by Eulalie Osgood Grover, from Kittens and Cats; a Book of Tales.

Source: @nypl.bsky.social / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/ad16e241-2dc3-450d-97a2-c308ffda7c7e

#table-settings #animals #cats #tea #collars #teacups #art #publicdomain