Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Common Garden Tulips 1

Nothing retains its original form, but Nature, the goddess of all renewal,
keeps altering one shape into another.
Nothing at all in the world can perish, you have to believe me;
things merely vary and change their appearance.
What we call birth is merely becoming a different entity;
what we call death is ceasing to be the same. Though the parts may possibly shift
their position from here to there, the wholeness in nature is constant.
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

You can download this botanical illustration of common garden tulips as a free high-res 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Nature Poems: The Man in the Sun + Flowers and Weeds

Two vintage nature poems originally published in 1887. The first poem is a short verse called The Man in the Sun written by Jenny Wallis and goes like this:
The man in the sun
Just thought it was fun
To fry a good pan of eels;
When both sides were cooked,
Then at them he looked,
And turned and threw up his heels.
The second poem is called Flowers and Weeds. It was written by George Cooper and goes as follows:
Have you ever heard what the fairies say,
Little girl, little boy? Oh, hear and heed!
For each smile you wear on your face to-day
There's a flower grows; for each frown a weed.

So to make this world like a garden bright,
Little girl, little boy, keep frowns away.
Oh, the loving lips that can say to-night,
We have scattered flowers o'er the earth to-day!
You can download the illustrated poem(s) as a high-res 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Garden Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Daffy-down Dilly

Cheerfulness, it would appear,
is a matter which depends fully as much on the state
of things within,
as on the state of things without and around us.
― Charlotte Brontë

Portrait of a young girl in a bonnet clutching a posy of flowers. The drawing is decorated with a border of cheerful daffodils. A little verse reads:

Daffy-down dilly is just come to town
With a red shawl and a pink gown
And all the flowers are smiling around.

You can download this garden-themed illustration as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Lady in the Spring Garden

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
A vintage garden illustration from the late 19th century. This colour engraving shows a young woman in the spring garden; she is pulling a branch of apple blossoms towards her while daisies bloom in profusion around her in the surrounding area.

You can download theis vintage illustration as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Mother and Daughters in the Woods 1

Walk straight ahead
Listen to no one
Trust not in the walls or doorways
For they will mislead
And close behind you
As you walk through
The forest, not knowing
Where you’ve come from
Or where you’re going …
If anywhere at all.
― Renée Paule, Just Around The Bend: Más o Menos

Vintage outdoor illustration of a Victorian mother and her daughters on a walk in the great outdoors. From an 1861 issue of Journal des Demoiselles.

You can download theis vintage illustration as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Edwardian Lady on a Walk in the Forest, 1905

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.
Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly.
Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature.
Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you.
Take the power to make your life happy.
― Susan Polis Schutz

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
― John Muir

From the front cover of Le Moniteur de la Mode dated March 25, 1905. This colour engraving shows an Edwardian lady holding a key on a chain as she heads into (or walks away from) a lush forest.

You can download theis vintage illustration as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Garden Poem: The Rabbit and the Carrot by Jenny Wallis

THE RABBIT AND THE CARROT
by JENNY WALLIS

I SING in rhyme a romance sweet,
A tender tale as e'er you'll meet.
'Tis all about a pretty rabbit;
Our little yard did he inhabit.

Beyond the fence Miss Carrot grew;
Her beauty his attention drew.
He daily thought, "Would I were able
To reach that lovely vegetable!"

He tried each space; found all too small;
Beneath there was no room to crawl.
Then off he tore a cabbage leaf,
And on it wrote his tender grief.

Then through the fence he tossed the note,
And to her feet he saw it float;
On which she read, with great surprise,
Words that were very far from wise.

She saw full well that he would win her,
Only to make on her his dinner;
So said, "Kind sir, your note I've seen;
But, pardon me, I'm far from green."

A humourous garden poem originally published March 8, 1887. If you would like to download the illustrated poem as a high-res 5.5" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, you can find it here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 4 (The Narcissus Pt. 2)

Would you like some warm Spring pie?
Then, take a cup of clear blue sky.
Stir in buzzes from a bee,
Add the laughter of a tree.

A dash of sunlight should suffice
To give the dew a hint of spice.
Mix with berries, plump and sweet.
Top with fluffy clouds, and eat!
― Paul Kortepeter, Holly Pond Hill: A Child's Book of Easter
The botanical illustration above shows a group of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) variety of Polyanthus Narcissus, (2) also variety of Polyanthus Narcissus, (3) Self-Coloured Rush Daffodil, (4) variety of Sweet-scented Narcissus or Great Jonquil, (5) the Poet's Narcissus, and (6) Narcissus viridiflora.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:

You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 3 (The Narcissus)

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have liv'd light in the spring,
To have lov'd, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes...?
― Matthew Arnold, Empedocles On Etna And Other Poems
The botanical illustration above shows a group of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) the Great Spanish White Daffodil, hardy with showy flowers, (2) Mr. Sabine's Daffodil, a very distinct species, (3) the Conspicuous Narcissus, a native of the Pyrenees, (4) the Nonsuch Daffodil, or Butter and Eggs, (5) the White Mountain Daffodil, one of the most beautiful narcissi, (6) Three-anthered Rush Daffodil, a native of Portugal and the south of France, (7) the Jonquil, a garden favourite for its fragrance and profusion of flowers, and (8) Narcissus gracilis, so long a common fixture in British gardens its origin is lost.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:

You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 2 (The Ismene and Others)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love
― e. e. cummings, Collected Poems
The botanical illustration above shows a trio of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) Peruvian Amancaes, a daffodil-like flower first brought to England in 1804; (2) the Common Sea Daffodil, a mainstay in British gardens for centuries; and (3) Hymenocallis, a name signifying "beautiful membrane," an aquatic plant from Mexico.

From the book, here are the original descriptions:

You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Botanical Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Spring Bulbs 1 (The Snowflake)

In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music
Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.

Then, by the end of morning,
he's gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

The botanical illustration above shows a cluster of flowers from the Amaryllidacea family, consisting of (1) the Spring Snowflake or St. Agnes'-flower; (2) the Snowflake or Summer Snowflake, whose botanical name is derived from two Greek words signifying "a white violet"; (3) Narrow-leaved Snowflake or Autumn-flowering Snowflake; (4) the Rose-coloured Acis; (5) Cape Crocus: its botanical name is said to derive from the Greek word meaning "to rejoice."

From the book, here are the original descriptions:

You can download the botanical illustration as a free high-res 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Great for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Garden Clipart for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Vintage Kids in the Garden (Set 1)

Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful
than all the banquets in the world ...
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves,
or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.
― Charles Schaefer
Three antique illustrations of children in Edwardian costumes playing in the garden. You can download these vintage drawings as a free 9" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration: The Donkey Ride, 1893

When we are children we seldom think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can.
The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,
if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring
that we used to gather with our tiny fingers
as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass,
the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows,
the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because
they did no harm to the precious crops.
What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything
is known and loved because it is known?
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
An antique illustration showing a Victorian lady walking beside her daughter who is riding on the back of a donkey down a country lane. You can download this vintage drawing as a free 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustrations: Victorian Women and Child on Walks in the Country, 1893

WEATHERS
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly;
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,'
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.
― Thomas Hardy

A grouping of vintage line drawings from 1893 showing four Victorian women and a child dressed for walks in the country. You can download theese antique drawings as a free 8.5" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Botanical Clipart: Three Grandest New Plants, 1896

Three grandest new plants for only 30 cents (as featured in the Mayflower Horticulture magazine from May 1896). From left to right, you have:

THE BRIDAL ROSE: A remarkable plant with leaves resembling a Rose in shape; its flowers are produced during winter, and as as double as a Peony and almost as large. Color pure white, and when a plant one or two feet high shows a score or more of these enormous flowers, which they often do, the sight is a most novel and attractive one. New and little known. Will create a sensation anywhere, for it is one of the most remarkably showy plants in cultivation, and should be in every collection.

NEW DWARF CALLA LITTLE GEM: All that need be said about this sterling novelty is that it is a perfect miniature Calla, growing 8 or 12 inches high and producing perpetually very large snow-white blossoms. It begins to bloom when only a few inches high in a three or four inch pot, and a well-established plant in a large pot is never without flowers, summer or winter, and sometimes shows a dozen at once. The greatest plant novelty of late years and yet the sensation of the day. Our stock is TRUE, and this is a rare opportunity for our readers to get one at little cost.

RUDBECKIA LACINIATA GOLDEN GLOW: Offered this year for the first time. A hardy perennial plant growing eight feet high, branching freely, and bearing by the hundreds, on long, graceful stems, exquisite double blossoms of the brightest golden color and large as Cactus Dahlias. The cut represents a plant in bloom, as photographed. Mr. William Falconer, the best authority on plants in this country, says of it: "When I saw the double-flowering form of Rudbeckia Laciniate in bloom in your grounds at Floral Park, in summer last year, I was amazed, for notwithstanding my long and intimate acquaintance with plants I had never before seen a double-flowered Rudbeckia; and I was delighted with the fullness and gorgeousness of the blossoms and their clear, bright yellow color. You gave me a plant last spring and it was set out in good garden ground. It grew vigorously and threw up strong branching flower stems six feet high, laden with sheaves of golden blossoms as large as fair Chrysanthemums, and all having an elegant, graceful appearance, without any stiffness in habit or blossom. Many eminent florists and amateurs have seen it here, and all admired it. As cut flowers, the blossoms last well. In fine, I unhesitatingly regard it as the most desirable introduction among hardy perennials since we got Clematis Paniculate."

You can download the vintage ad above as a high-res 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: January by Frank Dempster Sherman

Here is another winter poem (also entitled "January"), written by poet, architect, genealogist, and mathematician Frank Dempster Sherman. This short work originally appeared in the January 10, 1888 issue of Harper's Young People magazine.

JANUARY
by FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN (1860–1916)

JANUARY, bleak and drear,
First arrival of the year,
Named for Janus ― Janus who
Fable says has faces two ―
Pray is that the reason why
Yours is such a fickle sky?
First you smile, and to us bring
Dreams of the returning spring;
Then, without a sign, you frown,
And the snow-flakes hurry down,
Making all the landscape white,
Just as if it blanched with fright.
You obey no word or law:
Now you freeze, and then you thaw,
Teasing all the brooks that run
With the hope of constant sun,
Chaining all their feet at last
Firm in icy fetters fast.
Month of all months most contrary,
Sweet and bitter January!

I have paired the poem with a vintage wallpaper texture in the preview image above. If you would like to download the high-res 7" x 5" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, you can find it here. You can also find the black and white illustrated poem without the vintage paper texture here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Garden Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Victorian Lady in the Garden 3 & 4 (Set 2)

There are two types of appointments in life!
Appointments you know and appointments you don't know!
It is this second type of appointment that makes life interesting and but also scary.
Sometimes life will arrange a meeting for you; sometimes good, sometimes bad
and sometimes even tragic meeting, but you don't know about it!
― Mehmet Murat ildan
Two antique illustrations from 1892 showing a Victorian lady in a public garden. In the first image on the left, the drawing shows a close-up of her with some tall hollyhocks or gladioli in the background. The second illustration on the right depicts her standing on the terrace, looking towards another couple who are strolling arm-in-arm in the garden.

You can download the two illustrations as a single high-res 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbookingprojects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustrations for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Victorian Ladies in the Field, 1893

No walk is lovelier than the walk you make inside a field!
― Mehmet Murat ildan

A field which feeds you, a river which gives you water
are much holier than all other so-called holy places!
― Mehmet Murat ildan
A pair of vintage line drawings from 1893 showing two Victorian ladies in the field. The illustration on the left shows a lady resting her elbows on a fence rail, a pair of field glasses in her right hand, perhaps to observe birds with? The illustration on the right shows a lady leaning back against a fence, a basket of wildflowers in her left hand.

You can download theese antique drawings as a free 8" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Outdoor Illustration for Collage, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Ice Skating Party in the Park, 1896

A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air,
and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth,
now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere.
― Nathaniel Hawthorne
A vintage outdoor illustration from 1896 showing a young Victorian lady in a warm winter outfit, her hands in a muff, skating dreamily on an iced-over pond in a park. She seems undisturbed by the merrymaking crowd all around her, as she waltzes lightly across the ice on her skates.

You can download theis antique drawing as a free 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for collage, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.

Free Vintage Flower Illustration for Collage Art, Papercrafts, Scrapbooking or Wall Art: The Butterfly and the Rose 1

To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

An antique botanical illustration showing a butterfly on a stalk of pink cabbage roses (Provence rose, Rosa x centiflora). The engraving was done by Langlois after a drawing by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759 - 1840).

The form of Rosa centiflora portrayed by Redouté in this print is a triumph of the hybridiser's art; of its kind, it is surely near perfection. It is not surprising that Centiflora roses came to be identified with the so-called Queen of Roses cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. This notion is romantic, but informed opinion now belives it to be mistaken. Rosa centiflora is thought to be a complex hybrid of four species known in western Europe in the late sixteenth century, which was evolved pver a period of about a hundred and thirty years and perfected in the early eighteenth century. The four species involved were Rosa rubra (the Apothecary's Rose or Rose of Provins), Rosa phoenicea (the Damask Rose or Crusaders' Rose), Rosa moschata (the Musk Rose) and Rosa canina (the Dog Rose).
[Source: Eve and Norman Robson, Plants (London: Studio Editions, 1990), p.84]

Download and print for wall art or to use in various altered art, graphic design, papercrafts or scrapbooking projects. You can find the free high-res 8" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

Below, you can see how I have paired the above botanical illustration with a vintage piece of French sheet music called "Le Papillon et La Rose." You can find the high-res JPEG of the sheet music here.

If you would like to download the combined illustration and sheet music image, you can find the high-res JPEG here.

For personal use only. Not for resale. Please visit The Real Victorian website to see full Terms of Use.