About the house

The gates & the dignity doctrine

The Private Case is a curatorial reproduction house for vintage risqué and erotic art published through 1930 — verified public domain in the United States. We don’t invent the material; we curate and reproduce it, at museum grade, from sources anyone can check. What separates this house from a folder of scans is the gate: every piece, illustration and photograph alike, passes a logged human review before it is ever shown.

The universal human gate

One review, three rules, on every piece — no exceptions for illustration, no shortcuts for a famous name. Each verdict is logged with its reviewer and date and is append-only.

Rule 1

Age certainty

The subjects must read as unambiguously adult. Any doubt is disqualifying — not weighed, not argued, disqualifying. Where a subject’s age is uncertain, the plate is excluded and stays excluded; some celebrated suites fail this test and we let them fail it.

Rule 2

Dignity

Photographic subjects were real, and are almost always anonymous. We attempt no name, recover no identity, and add no sexualising “enhancement” — restoration is tonal repair only. Every photographic piece carries an era-framing note that presents it as the document of its trade and time that it is. Illustration leads this house; photography is curated sparingly, and must earn its place.

Rule 3

Consent-era honesty

Material that was never published in its own era — studio work that exists only because a subject sat for a commission, and which remains protected — is excluded on rights alone, however old it looks. The research lane logs it; the shop never sells it.

What each piece can become

A piece’s grade decides its product lanes — a structural policy, enforced in code at the route and at checkout, not a preference:

Risqué — suggestive, not nude. Every product, including the apparel line: cabaret posters and magazine illustration you can wear.
Nude — wall art only. Archival print, canvas, framed. Never apparel.
Explicit — no publish path at launch. Cataloged for the record and held in the vault; never offered for sale.

The sourcing promise

Every reproduction is traced to a named source and, where the holding institution assigns one, an accession number: Wikimedia Commons and open museum programs at the British Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Library of Congress; auction and ephemera archives; and house originals scanned from our own holdings. Source and accession are recorded on every piece, plainly. We restore honestly, we disclose always, and we never “enhance.”

Discreet by default

Orders ship in plain, unbranded packaging with no indication of contents on the outside. Your card statement shows a discreet billing descriptor, stated plainly at checkout before you pay. Nothing about the delivery or the charge announces what it is.

The Private Case is for adults (18+). Every piece is a faithful reproduction of a work verified public domain in the United States, published through 1930. Photographic subjects are anonymous and no identification is attempted; where a work’s rights, a subject’s age, or the consent of an era’s sitters cannot be established to our standard, the work is excluded, not shown. Live trademarks appearing in historical material are sold here as history and never adopted into this house’s own branding.