With Halloween just around the corner – and growing ever more popular as a special occasion in the UK market – the wonderful Bridgeman Art provides some spook inspiration for card publishers seeking artwork for the witching hour.
First up in the picture post is this vintage colour litho of a witch on her broom, complete with black cats, owl and the all-important pumpkin. This image is held in a private collection with rights held by the Bridgeman Library.
Keeping with the pumpkin theme is the aptly named Pumpkin II (Cucurbita Pepo) by contemporary artist Jessica Tcherepnine, who created the watercolour painting on paper in 1995.
Our next Halloween image is 
the rather stylish Bat and Full Moon, a colour woodblock print byJapanese artist Biho Takahashi (Yoshikuni) (b.1873). Perfect if you like Sushi with your spiders!
Then we have another fun vintage image, which is the colour engraving title page for ‘Cinderella’ by famous fairytale illustrator Charles Perrault (1628-1703).
If it’s something a little more haunted-looking your 
after then this creepy but ethereal oil on canvas, Abbey in Oak grove (Abtei im Eichwald), 1810, by wonderful German artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) should do the trick.
Last but not least we have a multi-cultural variant on the theme with ‘La Calavera de la Catrina’, a 1913 zinc etching by Jose Guadalupe Posada (1851-1913), created in honour of Mexico’s famous Day of the Dead.
