At first glance, we assumed this was a Biblically-accurate angel.  It's an optical illusion of seven cherbus within a trinity, in a soap ad from Youth's Companion, 1887.

From High Society: Hints on How to Attain, Relish, and Survive It by Fish, 1915. 

Parody analog horror meets 1970s tropes (like pet rocks, lava lamps, disco music, bell-bottom pants, mirror balls, and of course mood rings) in the web series Grave Mood Rings. It pokes fast fun at classic slow-moving Gothic soap operas like Dark Shadows and the Canadian series Strange Paradise. In addition to a vampiric Viscount, a castle is home to a groovy Doctor (a phlebotomist, naturally), a jolly housekeeper with her own laugh track, a werewolf Vicar, and an arch-nemesis riddler wearing a Sphinx mask. Corny wordplay, the occasional bizarre sing-a-long, and haunted doughnuts punctuate the proceedings, in the tradition of the sketch comedy of MadTV, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV.

From Robin Hood, His Book by Eva March Tappan and illustrated by Charlotte Harding, 1903.

From The Beacon Introductory Second Reader, Animal Folk Tales by James Fassett and illustrated by Charles Copeland, 1912.

"Tubes of hope."  From The Children's Newspaper, 1929.

From The Tiger's Whisker, and Other Tales from Asia and the Pacific by Harold Courlander.

"Yes!  We are stifling our spontaneity."  From Together, 1962.

From Our Cats and All About Them by Harrison Weir, 1889.

From Picture-Play Magazine, 1920.

From St. Nicholas magazine, 1913.

From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's 1916 yearbook.

From Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes (Routledge, 1877). 

From Ohio Wesleyan University's 1930 yearbook.

From Flying Saucer Digest, no. 35.

From Marion College's 1927 yearbook.

A shadowy monster from the Drakkhen Handbook.

From Eastern Montana College's 1958 yearbook.

"Cake-walk craze may put tango and other steps to rout."  From the Duluth Herald, 1915.

From This Is the Life! by Goodspeed & Smith, 1977.