*The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer* (1877) — The Public Domain Review
The Seer’s final prophecy is his most famed. Renowned across the Scottish Highlands, he was summoned by Lady Seaforth, the countess at Brahan Castle, for news of her husband, Kenneth…
Read more »Harold A. Taylor’s Autochromes of California Flowers (early 20th century) — The Public Domain Review
Despite his range of subjects, it was flowers that were perhaps closest to Taylor’s heart. While he photographed flowers embedded in California’s lush outdoors — growing wild in fields and…
Read more »Animal, Vegetable, Lamb: The Zoophyte from Tartary — The Public Domain Review
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the vegetable lamb leapt off the pages of natural historical description and into Baroque cabinets of curiosity. Preserved specimens from Tartary began appearing in…
Read more »Covers from *Cerîde-i Adliye*, a Turkish Law Journal (1924–26) — The Public Domain Review
Their profession was relatively new. Until the nineteenth century, justice in the Ottoman Empire — as in all Muslim states at the time — had operated largely through the auspices…
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The Launch of Our Mid-Year Fundraiser!
Our Mid-Year Fundraiser is launched, and the new postcards theme will be Soil. Source link
Read more »Genevieve Stebbins’ *Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression* (1886) — The Public Domain Review
Every possible element of a gesture or expression was deconstructed and fit into this rubric, with specific exercises for the “Fingers, Hand, Fore arm, Entire arm, Head, Torso, Foot, Lower…
Read more »Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art — The Public Domain Review
Of course, bridges also simply offer a good view: for combatants, for spectators, and ultimately for artists. By the seventeenth century, the ritualized violence of the battagliole had become one…
Read more »The Art of Kite Flying (1430–1929) — The Public Domain Review
Their capacity for flight is magical, almost animate, reflected in the names by which they are known around the world. In Greek, they are χαρταετοί, paper eagles, and the Germans…
Read more »Louis Pope Gratacap, A Curator in Lost Worlds
Arguably the first work of fiction to feature a Tyrannosaurus rex, Louis Pope Gratacap’s The New Northland (1915) is at once kaleidoscopic, mischievous, fascinating — and exhausting. Richard Fallon explores…
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Diagrams for Travel from the *Qanoon-e-Islam* (1832) — The Public Domain Review
While vedic astrology offers many tools for calculating the propitious days for all sorts of things, these charts and mnemonics for travelers turn out to be an even more complex…
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