IG’s Hot Victorians Is a Studly Time Travel Adventure

What is it exactly about men in history that can capture our attention? Is it their unattainability? For we can only glimpse their beauty, and we only get a limited number of images, so we have to savor what we can get. Is it that most of them are clothed, or mostly clothed, so we have to imagine what lies beneath the clothing? Is it that we don't know their sexuality, yet many times men are displayed in close physical proximity? The Instagram page @hotvictorians has all of this historical mystique going on and more in their collection of hot men of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We get real men and some artwork, working-class men, young students, older guys, men in uniform, and some tastefully undressed. It's a stunning collection with over 11K posts and growing! And they even published a companion coffee table book!

Since it's Halloween season, let's start with Bram Stoker (1847 – 1912), Irish Victorian Daddy Bear and the writer of Dracula (1897). Here he is in 1884.

This is the University of Wisconsin football team, pictured in 1898. Do you remember that scene in Dead Poets' Society when Robin Williams has his class look deeply and meaningfully at photos of school alumni, urging them to wonder what they were like in their day-to-day lives, to draw a connection between themselves and those who came before? This is what you want to do with this picture, wondering which were gay and which were straight; who fooled around with whom; who died young and who lived to a ripe old age; what did they look like showering together in the locker room?

This scruffily handsome hunk was Henri Jules Ferdinand Bellery-Desfontaines (1867–1909) of France. An artist, engraver, lithographer, typographer, poster artist, and banknote designer, he was a star of the Art Nouveau school of design. And he's an absolute stud, with those brooding eyes and beard-covered jawline. He would be played by the equally studly Tom Hardy if a biopic were filmed today; they look much alike, especially in the eyes. He and his wife had three children. He died tragically young from typhoid fever after eating oysters, as if that isn't the most artistically French way to die!

This unknown model from the late 1800's has a body worth being arrested for while breaking a host of local ordinances barring intamcy between men.

Meet Johan Arvid Leopold Blomqvist (1878-1952) from Stockholm, Sweden. Here he is in his mugshot by the Stockholm police in May 1898, so he was only 20. His crime is not listed, but he's described as having a scar on his shoulder blade and the side of his face, and his profession is listed as "worker". And he's only 5'3", so he's a scrappy little blue-collar cutie willing to throw down. Throw down, and get down, we hope!

Mr. Patrick Murray (1846-1930) from Kilcar, County Donegal, Ireland, was a teacher who gave a darkly handsome stare and serious sideburn action. He and his wife had ten children, so you know he was both an academic and a professor in the sack!

Sailors and ball players?! Fetch me my smelling salts and a fainting couch! This is the baseball team from the U.S.S. Maine, 1897, Navy baseball champions after defeating the U.S.S. Marblehead that year. There were some serious mustache rides below deck, I imagine! Tragically, most of the men pictured died when the Maine exploded the next year on February 15, 1898, in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The cause of the blast remains a mystery. The only survivor here is J.H. Bloomer, back row, left.

J. Embanks and W. Baxter were two early-20th-century professional wrestlers, seen here in a staged tousle for the camera.

Well, hello, Mr. Track and Field! Monsieur Joseph Tiburce Raymond de Guanderax (1888-1916) was a French athlete who won the hurdles at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. All I know is, he's packing one hell of a pole...for vaulting!

This photo, circa 1900, needs little explanation. Model unknown. Just lie back and...admire.

Hot priest action, anyone? This is Simon Mchedlishvili (1875-1928?) from Tbilisi, Georgia.

And finally (because yer boy Hank here is in desperate need of a cold shower!) we have "The Father of Modern Bodybuilding" Eugen Sandow (1867-1925) pictured here around 1895. He came with his own weights and modesty leaf.

Check out more @hotvictorians, and order the book, approved by the likes of Dita Von Teasse, and Absolutely Fabulous' Dawn French!

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