Ivy Close Images is a unique photo house that offers a diverse range of historical images with a focus on quality. Based in Southport, Maine, Ivy Close Images is a family-owned company that provides special attention to caption accuracy and image clarity. The collection offers 80,000 images available for licensing.
Areas of specialization include colorized and black and white illustrations of historic fashions, maritime history, American and European history and more.
This illustration dates to 1912 and the caption reads: The Search for a North-west Passage: the Crews of Parry’s Ships, the Hecla and Griper, Cutting Through the Ice for a Winter Harbour, 1819. Drawn by William Westall, A.R.A., after a sketch by Lieut. Beechey, a member of the expedition. Parry was an English explorer of the Arctic who was known for his 1819 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Passage. In 1827 he attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole. 
The figures in this illustration represent, from left to right: a Druid priest, a Gallic warrior, the British Queen Boudicea (also spelled Boudicca and Boudica and Boadicea), and another Gallic warrior. The illustration dates to 1882. 
There have been many representations of Joan of Arc (1412-1431), the French saint and national heroine. This one shows her in armor, with a plumed hat, and dates to around 1800. The French words by the sword translate: “This iron protects France”. 
The figures shown here represent Germans around A.D. 1100. They are from left to right: five warriors and two princesses. The illustration dates to 1882. 
This illustration of a Burmese junk dates to the 1890s. Note the A-shaped mast, the squaresail, the steering paddle at the side, and the sweep of the lines of its hull, coming right from the overhanging bow to the raised overhanging poop. 
The objects pictured, from left to right and top to bottom, are from ancient European times: stone hammers, stone head of lances, metal axe, two swords, two shields, two metal hammers, three daggers, crown, knife, two heads of weapons. 
In the spring of 1621, Captain Standish and William Brewster came to a formal agreement, a treaty of friendship, with Massasoit, in a house that was just being built in Plymouth Colony at the time. They sat on the floor, on a green rug, and three or four cushions, as is depicted in this early 1890s illustration. The Pilgrims had come to the New World in 1620. 
This illustration, which dates to 1882, shows Italian women 1500-1550. 
On April 30, 1692, several girls in Salem, Massachusetts, accused Reverend John Burroughs, a former Salem minister, of witchcraft. At the time, Burroughs was serving in Maine. He was brought back to Salem, jailed, judged guilty of witchcraft, and hanged on August 19, 1692. This late 1800s engraving depicts Burroughs just before the hanging. 
The Italian figures represented date to A.D. 1400. They are, from left to right: Pope Boniface IX, Pope Boniface IX in house dress, two cardinals, canon. The illustration dates to 1882. 
John Winthrop (1588-1649) was born in England and later came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he served as governor. He helped shaped the religous policy for the colony. His son, also John Winthrop, founded New London, Connecticut, in 1646 and served as governor of the state. 
Seen here is Shackleton’s Ship, the Nimrod, among the ice in McMurdo Sound, the Winter Land Quarters of the British Antarctic Expedition. The caption continues: By Sir Ernest Shackelton’s permission from his book ‘The Heart of the Antarctic’, published by. Mr. Heinemann. Shackleton was a British polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Shackleton went into McMurdo Sound in 1908. He died in 1922. 
This 1890s illustration show the mock suns as seen by early explorers. Mock suns, also known as sun dogs or sundogs, were formally called a parhelion (plural parhelia) in meteorology. A mock sun is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. Two sun dogs often flank the Sun within a 22 degrees halo. 
The figures in this illustration represent Germans from 1550 to 1600. They are, from left to right: a nobleman, a knight, an ensign, and the Margrave of Brandenburg Joachim II Hector (the first Protestant Elector of Brandenburg). The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a key area in the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806. The illustration dates to 1882. 
Thorvald Ericsson was the son of Eric the Red (founded the Nordic settlement in Greenland) and brother of Leif Ericsson (said to be the first European to land in North America- about A.D. 995). In the Norse sagas, he took part in the exploration of Vinland, (Greenland today), so-called by the Norsemen because of the many grapes they found growing there. One spring, Thorvald left with some 30 men to explore the coast and was attacked by Red Men (so-called in the saga), as pictured here in this 1896 illustration. Only Thorvald was wounded, with an arrow to his arrow pit. Soon after, he died as a result. The saga said that he asked that the place be called Cross Ness. 
The figures represented in this illustration date to the 1400s. They are, from left to right: noble lady, Queen Catarina Cornaro of Cyprus, noble ladies. 
James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) was elected the 20th President of the United States in 1880. He was constantly harassed by people seeking jobs and was shot by one, named Charles J. Guiteau, on July 2, 1881. He died on September 19. 
The USS Cushing (Torpedo Boat #1/TB-1), launched in 1890 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of Bristol, Rhode Island, was the first torpedo boat built for the United States Navy. It was used as a torpedo boat in the Spanish American War (1898). This illustration dates to 1896. 
In July 1879, 33 U.S. Navy officers, enlisted men, and civilians set off on the Navy-operated but privately owned steamer Jeannette from San Francisco, California. The goal was to reach the North Pole. In September the ice froze them in. They made headway only when the ice allowed movement. In June 1881, they were at Henrietta Island. The ice parted and they planned to leave, but on the 12th, the floes closed in tightly, crushing the hull of the Jeannette. The men took three small boats and supplies and began heading for safety – about 700 miles away. Only the boat under the officer Melville survived the ordeal. In this illustration, the Jeannette has just been crushed by the ice floes. 
The figures in this illustration show Germans between 1550 and 1600. They are, from left to right: a soldier, an armed citizen, an ensign, a provost marshal, a sapper, a trumpeter, and a captain. The illustration dates to 1882.
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