Radiant (and bygone?) grapes from an 1890 seed catalog.

Designers of turn-of-the-century and just-after cigarette cards really knew how to pack a lot of beauty into their tiny spaces (typically around 2" by 3", sometimes taller as in this example).

Another nice job, Candy Council admen of the early '50s.

This German postcard depicts the midnight summer sun in Advent Bay, Norway.  It (let alone the phenomenon itself) is so beautiful it can, at the right moments like just now, make Inflammammal's head loll/neck weaken.

An unattributed image from the Harvard online Herbaria collections.  It's flawless obviously, and that one little seed at bottom right somehow heart-rending.

These strawberries should be too stylized for my taste, but instead they're among my very favorite fruit illustrations.  I look at them almost every day and find them calming.  I don't own an original or even a copy, just this digital form.  Van de Mark, 1868:

As they date back only to 1969, the images in the Oxford Book of Food Plants lack the age they require to really move Inflammammal.  But this's a fine, fine watermelon; if I mistakenly believed this image to be 100 years older it'd probably make me cry a little.  Silly business, nostalgia!

These pears have nothing to be ashamed about either (same source):

A nice little Dutch number, bit restrained for my taste but still handsome.

Could do without the hand, but the peaches sure are sweet.  From 1934:

This Libby's label worth a look too.  Undated but I believe it's from the late 40s.

An 1804 illustration of mandarins, via the Harvard Herbaria's downloadable online collections.  They move me, particularly the tender unpeeled sections at bottom.

Typically, I collect paper objects for their beauty, not their hilariousness, but there are exceptions.  This is a postcard by BonTon Art from 1912, and I find it a bit shocking as well as very funny.

Some foxy tomatoes from Ernst Benary, 1876.  Their recognizability as heirloom varieties available today satisfies Inflammammal, and makes her grateful the Benary seed library and company still exist.

If only all of these thrilling carrots and roots were also for sale at Whole Foods!

But even fine art can't please Inflammammal like a a very good '40s juice ad.

Another Robert Thornton plate from Temple of Flora.  The way Thornton achieved the lighting/shading effect on the leaves is fascinating to me.  They look like satin & like tough leaves all at once.

As Inflammammal may have noted 10 or 12 times so far in this space, she finds old Sunkist ads unusually well-done.  From 1917, and are you kidding with that bowl?:

I find this crystal-ish design compelling.

I wish.

Feels like a while since I've posted a nice wildlife plate.  Here're some delightful hedgehogs.  Note the nursers.

Some ride that must've been.  Inflammammal can hardly imagine, what with her thing about oranges.

I miss the not that old but totally extinct spelling of "vitamins" as "vitamines".  It's just apter, somehow.  Also, this ad is so beautiful I could yelp or yodel.

Not so very beautiful, but so very Texas.

Furthering the point are these Swift's Brookfield ads, all from the early '30s.  The popover and dahlia combination is my favorite.

Pretty nice Art Deco sea nymph for a label that's about an inch and a half wide.  Nostalgia is best avoided in most instances, but there was a Golden Age of commercial art and packaging and it is long over.

This 1942 Dole ad with artwork by A.M. Cassandre remains popular enough to turn up in reproductions and such (along with other posters of his work).  It is no mystery why.  That man could do some commercial art.  The second one I don't own: it just didn't feel right to post but one Cassandre.

I usually like my fruit illustrations not to be group portraits like this, but wow, what a good-looking crowd.  German, 1894.

Here's a better-paired pair.  Sure were lots of suns and moons on crate labels.  Not that Inflammammal's complaining; the results were often awful nice.

Two more notable, unrelated can labels.  The peacock one makes me a bit giddy.  I'd've hated to've been the lima beans next to those on the shelf, tell you what.

It's not ephemera, but this particular Robert John Thornton plate from his Temple of Flora is one of my favorite images of all time and I feel like sharing, so here it comes, "The Night-Blooming Cactus":

Just because the process depicted can be used for great evil doesn't mean it's not a nice illustration.

2 unrelated orange crate labels, unrelated except the moon looks extra-magical in Yosemite.

"But mustn't you tire of looking for at and illustrations of glasses of orange juice, Inflammammal?"  No, but if I did:

Inflammammal spends a lot of time thinking "Is this item too racist to post?" about certain images, regardless of how nicely designed they are.  (One encounters this problem a great deal with Native Americans and certain other indigenous peoples on fruit and can labels, as there are just so many.)  Typically I just skip the post, erring on the side of caution.  In this case, I am posting despite its exoticization of the Hawaiian womanfolk and their shirtlessness.  It's right on the line, but look at those pineapple chunks!

No theme to this, just some can labels I enjoy.  "Below U.S. Standard" does not applies to the first's contents.

Everything's more attractive and affecting with a lighthouse on it!

Wish my scanner could better pick up the shiny gold-foil details on this one.  Still Apollonian without it.

Old matchboxes covers/labels have always been a category in which I've only been interested in the piece if I *really* loved the subject matter.  With that, I give you, coming in at a mere 1 3/8 by 2 inches,

And, at an expansive 2 7/8 by 4 3/8 inches,

Inflammammal sees any number of ways this 1951 ad could have been improved, but it's still tasty enough to feature.

One sometimes see ads advertising the nonavailability in a product, during the WWII requisitioning and rationing of (formerly) consumer goods.  All else aside, it's a fascinating advertising phenomemenon: You can't have these.  Sure be nice when you can, though, sometime in the totally indefinite future, huh?"  From 1942:

My final category of postcard interest is a mystery to me - factories and (manmade) plants.  Doesn't fit well with the rest of my niches, but look, it's so neat somehow:

All in the geometry and composition I suppose.  Bu unnaturally bright night scenes remain my #1: