Discover historical illustrations by subject, artist and book.
Creation and rebellion in Blake’s illuminated plates.
Norwegian fairy tales illustrated by Kay Nielsen.
Four colour drawings from a 1908 Gnostic text.
From the dark wood to Paradise with Gustave Doré.
Ethelwynne Quail’s visions of the spirit world.
Art Deco studies of fear by John Vassos.
36 illustrations
Susa-no-o stands beside Kushi-nada-hime, the maiden threatened by an eight-headed serpent.
Disguised as an astrologer, Camaralzaman approaches the Chinese court to cure the princess whom he has loved since their supernatural meeting.
A curling orange form fills the upper panel while a jagged red-orange burst occupies the lower one.
Red lightning and a narrow, dagger-like shape give anger two different durations in this paired plate.
Two contrasting shapes give jealousy a watchful and an angry form in Besant and Leadbeater's visual vocabulary.
A diagonal succession of grey crescents turns a moment of fright into a sequence rather than a single emblem.
Rama draws his bow towards the leaping deer, fixing the deceptive chase at a moment of poised violence.
The serpent’s looping body makes a dense setting for Krishna and the figures appealing to him.
Two men face one another at a cottage doorway.
The winged observer stands at the right beneath spreading branches, looking towards the garden below.
A crowded group clings to a rock as waves surround them; a large cat holds its young above the water nearby.
Saul rises beside his throne with a long spear raised towards the young David, who recoils with his harp.
A standing guard holds a child before a seated ruler while two women reach into the space between them.
A kneeling elder raises his hands towards three travellers crossing a bare, stony landscape.
People and animals struggle among deep openings and fractured blocks of earth below a distant hill.
A tall male figure and a pale-robed woman raise their arms among curling red and dark forms.
A spotted cat crouches between rocks while Dante draws back on the higher ground; a distant landscape opens beyond the obstruction.
A brightly lit woman raises one hand before a robed listener, surrounded by the dark vegetation of the lower realm.
Dark vortices with red interiors fill an oval crossed by sharp scarlet, lightning-like strokes.
Repeated grey zigzags cross a tall oval of subdued blue, yellow, pink and green.
Dante and Virgil stand on a rocky margin above a dense group of struggling bodies, with raised arms and tangled limbs emerging from the dark ground.
Four circular devices occupy separate compartments beneath handwritten descriptions.
A human-faced creature with large wings and a curling, pointed tail lies below two travellers on a rocky ledge.
The two travellers stand among many heads emerging from a flat, dark surface beneath distant rocky walls.
The poets stand beside two exposed heads, one leaning over the other at the surface of the frozen pit.
A reclining woman and a small group of grotesque attendants occupy the foot of an immense golden field.
A helmeted knight on a pale horse carries a long upright spear beside slender trees.
Several travellers follow a narrow ledge beside a pale pack animal.
A slender musician plays a long flute while balanced on the back of a fish-like vessel.
A couple holds each other close at the lower edge while a bright comet breaks across a dark sky.
Tall ships crowd together above a churning sea, their decks full of small figures and their rigging thick with intersecting lines.
A richly dressed dancer turns with one arm extended and a dagger lifted in the other hand.
A knight rests low on one knee with a long sword beside a broad hat.
A small monkey looks upward beneath great pale cliffs and an overhanging dark shape.
A turbaned traveller stands beneath a spreading tree with small birds among its branches.
A pale turreted house rises behind an ornate iron gate and dark trees.
27 plates
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10 plates
