I like digging through the Library of Congress’ photo and print archives. Inspired by the newspaper article on William Gillette’s 1900 Sherlock Holmes tour, I found theater posters from that tour.
I did some clean-up of the backgrounds, and I might print these out, put these in frames, and decorate my home or office with them. These are really lovely pieces of art.
The picture of Gillette’s Holmes with the well-dressed young man in torn clothes is interesting, as you can see where Frederic Dorr Steele got his look for Sherlock Holmes in the stories he illustrated from. Compare the dressing gown Gillette’s Holmes is wearing in that piece of art to Steele’s cover for Collier’s in 1904 for “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.”
The originals can be found here and here. Two more theater posters can be found here and here.