Featured

Gin Lane

This print was published as a pair with Beer Street and contrasted the health and productivity benefits of drinking beer with the vice of gin drinking. At the time the prints were made gin was drunk in great quantities in England, and was extremely cheap. Hogarth's nightmarish scene is set in the slum known as the Ruins of St Giles and includes a drunken mother dropping her baby to take a pinch of snuff, the burial of a naked woman, mass brawling, and a man and dog fighting over a bone. Soon after the appearance of Hogarth's prints the Gin Act of 1751 reduced the number of gin shops and greatly increased the tax on importing gin amongst other measures to curtail consumption.
Original Artwork: Engraving by Adland after William Hogarth. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)

Hotel No Snoring Poster!

circa 1926: A handwritten sign tacked onto the wall of a grubby hotel room warns the occupant that snoring is forbidden. "Vistors must not snore. Those addicted to night noises can be transferred to floors 12 to 14 on application to check clerk."
(Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

Woman riding champagne bottle at new year art nouveau 1897

Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts, known in different languages by different names: Jugendstil in German, Stile Liberty in Italian, Modernisme catala in Catalan, etc. In English it is also known as the Modern Style. The style was most popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Epoque period that ended with the start of World War I in 1914.
Original edition from my own archives
Source : Jugend Band 1 - 1897
Fritz Dannenberg ( Munchen )

© Ralf Hettler