Museum and Library Art Image Collections
In the list below, you will find links to the online image collections of museums and libraries. While some of these cultural institutions have particularly strong holdings in Western visual art, others (such as the Penn and Peabody Museums) have extensive anthropological and/or archaeological collections. Keep in mind that museums often have strict guidelines for your use of images; be sure to read the Terms and Conditions of use provided on individual websites.
- British Museum Online Collection DatabaseOver one million digital images of objects in the collection of the British Museum
- Corsair - Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts from the Pierpoint Morgan LibrarySearch or browse through more than twenty thousand digitized illuminations from the Pierpont Morgan's extensive collection of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection DatabaseThe Collection Database is a searchable database of artworks and related materials from the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) Collection Search PageSearch or browse over 40,000 works of art in the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
- National Gallery of Art (NGA Images)The digital image repository of the National Gallery of Art allows you to search, browse, share, and download images from the museum collection. The advanced search also included a limiter that enables you to find only open access images that are free of copyright restrictions.
- Art Institute of Chicago Digital CollectionComplete access to the Institute's digital archive with over 44,000 images and growing. All images have a Creative Commons Zero license which means they are available to use without restriction.
- Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology - Collections OnlineExplore the extensive online collections of Harvard's Peabody Museum to find images of objects, photographs, paintings, drawings, and prints from cultures all over the world.
- Penn Museum - Online CollectionsThe database of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology contains images and information about artifacts from the ancient cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan and Israel, Mesoamerica, Asia, and the Mediterranean as well as those produced by the native peoples of Africa and the Americas.
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Image GalleryThe Archives of American Art is the world's largest repository of materials documenting the visual arts in the United States. The Image Gallery contains digitized copies of photographs, sketches, artists' correspondence, and other archival material.
- Smithsonian Collections Search Center"One-stop searching" for images, video, sound files, and other resources from the Smithsonian's museums, libraries, and archives.
- Visual Collections: Images of Art, History, and CultureVisual Collections provides a single point of access to the digital repositories of over fifty museum, university, and private collections. Bucknell's own Samek Art Gallery is a participant!
Explore Museums Online
Want to visit Berlin museums or the Chateau de Fontainebleau but can't afford an airplane ticket? Take a trip at your desk using the Art Project powered by Google.
- Art Project, Powered by GoogleGoogle's Art Project allows you to view artwork from hundreds of museum collections. You can even take a virtual stroll through select galleries. Although educational use of this website is encouraged, images cannot be downloaded and printed. You can, however, zoom in to view images in extraordinary detail, create slideshows, and save and share images in your personal gallery.
- Art Project - How to Use the SiteThis short video will introduce you to the features of the Art Project website.
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