9 Websites for 1000s of Free Vintage Images and Illustrations

Explore these historical art libraries, packed with free illustrations and images to download and inspire your creative projects

Art resources are a key tool for any creative’s belt, and vintage collections are some of the most accessible. Vintage and historical art can not only open our minds to forgotten styles and techniques, but much of it is in the public domain—ready for remixing and reinventing.

Scroll through these nine art collections to aid your creativity, from enchanting animal illustrations to scientific drawings to clothing patterns, and learn where to download the imagery totally free.

Using art in the public domain

Images labeled with a "Creative Commons Zero (CC0)" license can be incorporated directly into your work if you choose, or significantly distorted and remade. While most of the images below fall under CC0, it’s good practice to check each image’s specific license and the licensing laws of your country.

1. The Art Institute of Chicago

Let’s start with reference material: the work of great artists that we can use to inform our creative decisions even centuries later. A couple of years ago, The Art Institute of Chicago released a digital library of its collection of works of art, spanning back to the 19th century (the institute was founded by George Armour in 1879).

The resource allows users to explore and download high-quality images of artworks. From masterpieces by world-renowned artists to uncovered gems, visit the Art Institute of Chicago’s digital library.

2. UCLA’s Internet Archive of Children’s Story Books

Discover centuries-old stories in this archive of American children’s literature, from ancient fables to classics, for the ultimate historical inspiration for your next children’s book project.

Some notable titles include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Huckleberry Finn, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Women, and Aesop’s Fables. Many feature beautiful illustrations, including endless cover art to scroll through. For fun nostalgia or historical research, it’s a great resource.

Learn more about the library here, or access the collection directly.

3. The British Library’s Collection on Flickr

The UK’s national library is world-renowned for its over 14 million books and several million other resources. On Flickr, they have organized several pages worth of categories you can choose from, to begin exploring literature, illustration, and technical drawing on a variety of topics. "Book Covers", "Ships and Boats", "Women of the World", and "Ghosts and Ghoulish Scenes" are just some of the categories available.

Within each category, there are scanned pages and full-color illustrations from all sorts of publications. However, this resource will be most relevant to those interested in maps, architectural plans, and scientific drawings, as there are literally thousands to explore! Explore the British Library collection.

4. Heritage Type’s Vintage Bundles

When you’re looking for interesting elements to add directly to a project (like a collage or even a website), vintage illustrations can be a great place to turn, as they are no longer under copyright. In this practical collection by Heritage Type, the images come in themed bundles and include PNGs and sometimes even vector images.

The bundles include themes of flora, fauna, historical clothing, and pastimes. Delve into the complete Heritage Library here.

5. Vintage Sewing Pattern Wikia

Next up is a collaborative website dedicated to documenting vintage sewing patterns from 1800 through to 1990. The free resource is packed with ideas and almost 100,000 images of different outfit designs, poses, and image compositions that will fuel your fashion nostalgia.

Within the collection you can find day dresses, swimsuits, evening dresses, coats, and more. Learn more about the platform in our full article, and access the Vintage Sewing Pattern Wikia here.

6. Audubon’s Collection of Watercolor Birds

Are you a budding ornithologist? If you want to include beautiful bird imagery in your work, check out the watercolors of John James Audubon. Considered the original wildlife illustrator, his work was printed between 1827 and 1838, and is now available in a free resource containing 435 life-size watercolors, all reproduced from hand-etched plates.

On the site, you can search by species, or sort the paintings by the North American state each bird is associated with. Each print is also available as a free high-resolution download.

Learn about Audubon’s journey to illustrating birds, then access the full collection of paintings.

7. National Agricultural Library of the United States’s Pomological Watercolors

This digital archive, created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) at the end of the nineteenth century, includes a collection of around 7,500 paintings (mainly watercolors and lithographs) that you can download for free.

Each watercolor includes the year and author of the painting and the scientific and common names of the fruit, vegetable, or plant depicted. You can download most of the images in high resolution. Learn about the history of this collection and view the watercolors here.

8. Free Vintage Illustrations website

This site really does what it says on the tin! The Free Vintage Illustrations site is compiled by a public domain and vintage media enthusiast.

Scientific illustrations and animal illustrations are popular sections, but you’ll find a huge variety of content from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries here. There are cards for birthdays and other special occasions, landscapes, fairies and gnomes, and so much more. The imagery is easy to download and comes as JPEG files.

9. Yokohama City Library's Catalog of Illustrated Fireworks

Finally, for a more specific topic that still provides broad inspiration for the use of color and shape, discover the history of Japanese fireworks. Around 1600, the Japanese started using fireworks, known as hanabi—a word that combines the characters for 'fire' and 'flower'. The name comes from an analogy between a flower that blooms beautifully but dries quickly, combined with the magical brightness of fire.

Japan's Yokohama City Library website has shared a free catalog of illustrations that offer a rich visual narrative of fireworks throughout Japanese history. Note: the library's website is in Japanese (to download the catalogs, click on the title and then tap "本体PDF画像 ")

Infuse even more artistic inspiration into your work with these resources

1. If you enjoyed this list of vintage art collections, explore our wider range of creative resources which also includes film, typography, and more.

2. Craft striking vintage-style spreads for a picture book, with this course on Vintage Illustration for Children’s Books by Ingela P. Arrhenius.

3. Add flair to your hand-lettering with this Vintage Lettering course by Mark van Leeuwen.