I acquired some very nice high resolution scans of an old butterfly book, "Europe's Best-Known Butterflies" (F. Nemos, Berlin, 1895).  The images were available at Wikimedia Commons, but needed a lot of cleaning up for me to post them here.  I separated the individual butterflies and caterpillars from the larger plates, and did some color enhancement and editing of smudges. The result is close to 200 images in the Gallery here at Old Book Art.   The original 18 full plates (cleaned up) are in their own folder here. The individual butterfly and caterpillar images range from quite small (less than 500 pixels) to very large (3000 pixels or so.)  Some of these look like moths, but I cannot always tell a butterfly from a moth that easily.  The full plates are each about 3850 by 5450 pixels.  As always, these pictures are free and available for no charge here at Old Book Art.  Donations are appreciated but by no means required as these are public domain images that I have simply cleaned up and collected. Here are a few samples.  If you want to browse them all go to the GALLERY. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="141" caption="European Butterflies Plate 10"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Arctia caja ...

This edition from 1921 is the first American edition, I believe. The plates are identical or very similar to the originals. The image titles and quotes are verbatim from the tissue guards. (The quotations are themselves text excerpts.) It is sometimes hard to determine how extensively to edit my images. The toning and loss of color over decades or centuries will almost always have some effect, but in many cases this actually looks very nice and is what some people either want or expect. Depending on your tastes and the use you have for the image, the aged affect is often preferable. Nevertheless, I have often removed to age toning and brightened the colors, as the cleaner image is a lot fresher, often more useful for certain applications, and will in a lot of cases actually be closer to what the artist intended. I will not pretend to know what Detmold intended, let alone what the color was like at the time of printing, but I here offer  the images in both forms.  The whiter, brighter images are very nice, even if not accurate restorations. The Gallery has links to all the plates, both edited and as scanned.   The images below link ...

This is a collection of images shared with me by the man who scanned them from various antique bibles and other old books, including:  Mathematical Astronomy by C.W.C. Barlow & G.H. Bryan (1893); Dawn of Astronomy by Sir Norman Lockyer (late 1800's); Baedeker's Palestine and Syria (1912); An Illustrated History of the Holy Bible, published by Henry Bill (1871); and The Holy Bible, published by John E. Potter and Company (late 1800's). Rather than being organized by the book they come from, they are roughly organized by subject. This is because they were given to me this way by the person who scanned them, William Struse, and I have kept his organization. The images are all public domain and he shared them with me with the understanding they would be offered for free here. He has only thumbnails on his site, and this was an easy way for him to share the larger images with a broader audience.  The maximum size of each image varies greatly.  I have edited them extensively to clean up the dirt and shadows and to darken, brighten, and otherwise enhance the lines.  A lot of text shows through from the obverse side of the leaves, but ...

Here is another from the Lloyd's Natural History series, published in the late 19th century.  This title has 38 plates, representing only a small part of the information in the volume  (Most volumes, olumes, covering almost the entire animal kingdom, had 30 or more color plates, about 5 by 7 inches.) As with other Lloyd titles, this book can be found, usually for under $200. The plates being intact make it desirable. The Gallery has links to all the plates, both with and without the captions.   The images below link to the individual image pages where they are available for download in various sizes for free. Title: Lloyd's Natural History. A Hand-Book to the Marsupialia and Monotremata Author: Richard Lydekker, B.A, F.R.S., Vice-President of the Geological Society, etc.,etc.,etc. Artist: Various. Publisher: Edward Lloyd Date Published: 1896 [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Great Grey Kangaroo, Macropus giganteus"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Black-Tailed Wallaby, Macropus ualabutus "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Red-Necked Wallaby Macropus ruficollis "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Parry's Wallaby, Macropus parryi "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Dama Wallaby, Macropus eugenii "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby Petrogale pencillata "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="143" caption="Queensland Tree-Kangaroo, Dorcopsis lumholtzi "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Common Rat-Kangaroo, Potorous tridaclylus "][/caption] [caption ...

Lloyd's Natural History, published in the late 19th century, had many volumes, covering almost the entire animal kingdom. The species described are quite comprehensive, and the 32 plates represent only a small part of the information in the volume. Most volumes had 30 or more color plates, about 5 by 7 inches. As with other Lloyd titles, this book can be found, usually for under $200. The plates being intact make it desirable. Title: Lloyd's Natural History. A Hand-Book to the Carnivora. Part I. Cats, Civets, and Mungooses Author: Richard Lydekker, B.A, F.R.S., Vice-President of the Geological Society, etc.,etc.,etc. Artist: Various. Publisher: Edward Lloyd Date Published: 1896 [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lion, Felis leo"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lioness and Cubs, Felis leo"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lion-Tiger, Felis leo (hybrid)"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Tiger, Felis tigris"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption=""Tiger and Cubs""][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Leopard, or Panther, Felis pardus"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Ounce (Snow Leopard), Felis uncia"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Jaguar, Felis onca"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Puma, Felis concolor"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Clouded Leopard, Felis nebulosa"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Marbled Cat, Felis marmorata"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Fishing Cat, Felis viverrina"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Leopard-Cat, Felis bengalensis"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Leopard-Cat (Javan Variety), Felis javanensis"][/caption] [caption id="" ...

The University of Oldenburg has digitized and made available a wonderfully extensive collection of old children's books, mostly from the 19th century. I came across the collection a couple of years ago when I was researching an old German children's picture book a colleague had come across. The title was vague enough to begin with, but even with a fairly accurate (if overly literal) translation I could not find any information. Finally I came across the Oldenburg site, and was very pleased with the extent of titles and images available. I found the book, too, one out of about 400 titles they have scanned and posted. Oldenburg's images are not the highest quality. For about 20 euros they will sell you a CD of a title with higher resolution images, which is not a bad deal if you need (or want) them. Most books available for free online will yield usable images of between 800 and 1500 pixels, though, so many people will be perfectly happy with what is available. The images are dirty rough though, and need a lot of cleaning. I here have pulled the images from this 1876 guide ...

64 illustrations of fish, birds and mammals. I found this tattered and broken book in a lot of old books sorted into moldy and decrepit boxes. The book was not salvageable and many plates were missing, but those remaining were free of any major defects or stains. The illustrations of the fish, birds and mammals are not the best quality, but I was able to get good scans without having to any major editing or restoration, and the range of species was good enough for me to make an album out of it. Title: Five Hundred Fascinating Animal Stories: With Numerous Colored Plates Author: Alfred H. Miles Artist: Various. Publisher: The Christian Herald Date Published: 1895 The images in the gallery are in the order of fish, birds, and then mammals. Below are some representative images, linked to the gallery page where you can download various high resolution sizes at no cost. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Lobster"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Searobin"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Sawfish"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Blowfish"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Moonfish"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Crab"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Eel"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="117" caption="Shaft Tailed Bunting"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="118" caption="Emeu Wren"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="116" caption="Parrot Finch"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="117" caption="Pine Grosbeak"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="125" ...

Biggle's Poultry Book was published as part of the small, pocket sized Biggle Farm Library series. These images are from the 9th edition, although the plates did not change between editions (content and chapters were added over the years). It remains very collectible in addition to having a lot of great information and reference material. It is considered an essential part of the subject's historical reference works, and is on Cornell University's list of Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA). It is a very small book, yet the illustrations are so detailed that they scan incredibly well and can be resized to many times their original size. I do not know a lot about Louis Graham, other than he liked to draw fowl. I have heard from a number of people who have original works by him (all birds) and everyone says his the originals are keepsakes and very nice. This book has 16 chromolithographed color plates along with numerous black and white illustrations. I have reproduced just about every scannable image. The color images are at the beginning of the gallery, but some of the black and white details are nice too and would be useful for ...