The Public Domain Review

@publicdomainrev
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Not-for-profit project dedicated to exploring curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas — focusing on works now fallen into the public domain.

Smaller posts surface images, books, audio, and film (sourced from places like Internet Archive, Library of Congress, The Met, Rijksmusuem, Wellcome, etc.) — and we've also 300+ long-form essays (✍️ submissions welcome!)

Here we'll mostly be tooting about content on our site. 🎺

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The Public Domain Review8h ago
A few of the 80+ illustrations by Pauline Knip for Les Pigeons (1810), a publication mired in controversy. See our post for more of the stunning images, and a story of plagiarism, power, pretence and... pigeons: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/les-pigeons
The Public Domain Review11h ago
Amid the images of swordplay, jousting, and wrestling, some 15th-century “fight books” (Fechtbücher) depict scenes of fierce combat between women and men, the latter stood waist-high in holes or barrels. What was going on? https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fechtbucher
The Public Domain Review14h ago
Images from Owen Simmons' The Book of Bread (1903), a reference manual for commercial bakeries which includes striking pasted-in silver bromide prints and dazzling chromolithographs of bread. Read the book, and see more of its images, here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/book-of-bread
The Public Domain Review16h ago
Details from The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke by the British painter Richard Dadd, who died #onthisday in 1886 whilst in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Read more on the man and his mesmerising work in Nicholas Tromans' essay — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/richard-dadds-master-stroke #OTD
The Public Domain Review1d ago
Images from the 1665 edition of Fortunio Liceti’s De Monstris, originally published, without the illustrations, in 1616. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fortunio-liceti-s-monsters-1665
The Public Domain Review1d ago
These rebus-style Buddhist texts were made for illiterate people. Each picture, when sounded out in Japanese, would approximate the Classical Chinese syllables in which the sutra or hymn should be recited. More here: https://buff.ly/3reC8vg
The Public Domain Review1d ago
Snowball fights in art (1400–1946) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/snowball-fights
The Public Domain Review1d ago
Born #onthisday in 1832, the French illustrator Gustave Doré. Pictured is the “The New Zealander”, the last of Doré's plates for London: A Pilgrimage (1872) in which he depicts a distant traveller from New Zealand sketching the ruins of a future London: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dore-new-zealander
The Public Domain Review2d ago

Vase of Flowers, by Jan Davidsz de Heem, ca. 1660.

De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still lifes in the Netherlands, combining a brilliance and harmony of colour along with an accurate rendering of objects.

Buy print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/vase-of-flowers

The Public Domain Review2d ago
Keen to appear outward-looking and open to Western culture, in 1838 the Second King of Siam bestowed upon his son a most unusual name. @BullenRoss explores the curious case of “Prince George Washington”, a 19th-century Siamese prince: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/george-washington-at-the-siamese-court