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May 13, 2016

27 Fun and Interesting Vintage Circus Posters From the Late 19th Century

Around the joint of the 19th and 20th centuries, stage tricks were a mainstay of theater entertainment. To seduce the crowd there were posters, each fashioned with feverish, hallucinatory images of death, evil, the Beast, phantasmagoria and the darkest magic.

The occult was a big lure. The subconscious was pricked. Here, below is a collection of 27 attractive posters advertising the circus and magic performances in the Victorian era.

Female trapeze acrobats at circus, ca. 1890

Funny scenes on bicycles and skates, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1900

Kellar and his servants, magician poster, 1894

Kellar in the woods with demons, magician poster, 1900

Kellar the magician, performing arts poster, 1894

Kellar toasts the Devil, performing arts poster, ca. 1899

Levitation 2, magician poster Kellar, ca. 1894

Levitation 3, magician poster for Kellar, 1900

Levitation, magician poster Kellar, 1894

Louis Cyr, strongest man on earth, 1898

Marvelously trained sea lions & seals, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, 1899

Scenes in the grand water circus, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1895

Self decapitation, magician poster for Kellar, 1897

Terrific flights over ponderous elephants, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, 1899

The great Coney Island water carnival, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1898.

The great Coney Island water carnival, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1898

The marvelous foot-ball dogs, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1900

The Orfords, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, ca. 1897

The Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles - Sandow lifting the human dumbell, 1894

Troupe of very remarkable trained pigs, poster for Barnum & Bailey, 1898

Twenty funny felt-crowned fools, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, 1899

Wm. H. West's Big Minstrel Jubilee - The De Elmar Trio, vaudeville poster, 1900

Wondrous Wild Beasts, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, 1897

Zan Zig performing with rabbit and roses, magician poster, 1899

A congress of the great birds of the world, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, ca. 1898

Champion great danes from the Imperial kennels, poster for Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, ca. 1898

Descente d'Absalon par Miss Stena, circus poster, ca. 1890

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