Libraries: Art and Social Ideals: Public Image Collections

Public Image Databases

Louvre Digital Collections
The Louvre’s collection offers several research tools: full-text search engine; advanced search form; features that filter search results according to date of creation, collection the work belongs to, where the work is located, category of work, artist/maker; themed albums; and an interactive map to find works on display in the museum
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The Louvre’s collections site offers several research tools: full-text search engine; advanced search form; features that filter search results according to date of creation, collection the work belongs to, where the work is located, category of work, artist/maker; themed albums; and an interactive map to find works on display in the museum
Digital Public Library of America
DPLA works with institutions across America to make millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience.
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library.
British Museum Image Collection
This image collection is from the the British Museum which was founded in 1753 and opened its doors in 1759. It was the first national museum to cover all fields of human knowledge, open to visitors from across the world.
The Museum is driven by an insatiable curiosity for the world, a deep belief in objects as reliable witnesses and documents of human history, sound research, as well as the desire to expand and share knowledge.
British Library Images Online
Search for images in the British Library's collections.
VADS
An online resource for the visual arts. 44 Image collections. Fine art, design, posters, ceramics, illustration, etc.
Access Ceramics
Collection of contemporary ceramic art. This collection was created to "fill a void in contemporary ceramics digital image collections on the web".
ArtAxis
Independent network of artists which currently hosts the work of young artists, working predominantly in ceramics.
The Brooklyn Museum Image Collections
the Brooklyn Museum has amassed one of the largest and most diverse collections in the United States. Its vast holdings range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world's principal cultures, reflecting the institution's long history of acquiring Western and non-Western art. This image collection represents some of the vast museum collection.
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Brooklyn Museum has amassed one of the largest and most diverse collections in the United States. Its vast holdings range from the ancient to the contemporary and encompass virtually all the world's principal cultures, reflecting the institution's long history of acquiring Western and non-Western art.
The Collection Online:The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A collection of over 400,000 images of works of art from the The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. High quality images available for download.
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture: Image and Text Collections
Collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, with a particular focus on Early America. Included are electronic books from as early as the 1700's, images (ceramics, furniture, and prints) and web resources.
Enluminures
Selected images from illuminated manuscripts. Subject guide and thumb nails. In French! G.E.
Co-produced by the Department of books and reading and the Institute for Research and history texts (CNRS), linked by a joint program since 1979, based Illuminations offers free consultation of more than 120 000 images, as thumbnail and full screen, digital reproductions of illuminations and decorative elements of more than 5000 medieval manuscripts preserved in hundreds of French municipal lib
Europeana Think Culture
Europeana is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe. It is an authoritative source of information coming from European cultural and scientific institutions.
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Ideas and inspiration can be found within the millions of items on Europeana. These objects include:
Images - paintings, drawings, maps, photos and pictures of museum objects
Texts - books, newspapers, letters, diaries and archival papers
Sounds - music and spoken word from cylinders, tapes, discs and radio broadcasts
Videos - films, newsreels and TV broadcasts
Gardiner Museum
The Gardiner Museum is Canada’s national ceramics museum. The digital image collections have images on subjects such as Ancient America Ceramics, Canadian Contemporary Ceramics, Chinese Ceramics, European Ceramics, International Contemporary Ceramics, Japanese Ceramics, and the artist Raphael Yu
Smithsonian Image Database
Search a selection of images from the Smithsonian Institution's nineteen museums and galleries, nine research centers, and the National Zoo.
Artsy
Artsy’s mission is to make all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. We are an online platform for discovering and collecting art. Our growing collection comprises 50,000+ artworks by 11,000+ artists from leading galleries, museums, foundations, and artists’ estates. Artsy provides one of the largest collections of contemporary art available online.
American Craft Council Library Digital Collections
This collection contains a selection of catalogs published by the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and the American Craft Museum in correlation with exhibitions sponsored by the American Craft Council and held at the museum between 1956 and 1990.
Getty Image Search Gateway
The Getty Search Gateway allows users to search across several of the Getty repositories, including collections databases, library catalogs, collection inventories, and archival finding aids. - Getty
Google Art Project
Explore museums from around the world, view 30,000 artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.
Great Buildings Collection
This gateway to architecture around the world and across history documents a thousand buildings, and hundreds of leading architects, with photographic images and architectural drawings, integrated maps and time-lines, 3D building models, commentaries, bibliographies, web links, and more, for famous designers and structures of all kinds.
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Great Buildings Collection, presenting 1000 classics of world architecture, and hundreds of their great designers, in the leading general architecture reference site online.
Architecture, Restoration, and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná
Image resources for the Maya cities; Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná,
Image*After
Image*After is a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial.
Manuscripta Mediaevalia
Catalog of medieval illuminated and textual manuscripts, with selected digital facsimiles. In German! G.E.
The MET Works of Art Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Timeline presents a thematic, chronological, and geographical exploration of global art history through The Met collection. It is authored by The Met’s experts, and currently comprises more than 1,000 essays, close to 7,600 works of art, 300 chronologies, and 3,700 keywords. It is regularly updated and enriched to provide new scholarship and insights on the collection.
National Portrait Gallery
Collection of images from the National Portrait Gallery.
Prints & Photographs from the Library of Congress
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress.
Time Life Pictures
Time & Life coverage from Getty Institute
Wellcome Images
Wellcome Images is one of the world's richest and most unique collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to biomedical science.

Fashion and Textiles

Europeana Fashion
Europeana Fashion is home to thousands of fashion illustrations. From drawings to sketches and from plates to prints, discover fashion over the centuries through the art of illustration.

Art Related Videos

Louisiana Channel Weekly Videos on Art
Louisiana Channel is a non-profit website based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. With Louisiana Channel as a platform, Louisiana provides culture to the Internet, extending beyond the museum’s own events. The Louisiana team produces videos about art and culture on an ongoing basis. New videos are posted at the site every week. (from Louisiana Channel)
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Louisiana Channel contributes to the permanent development of the museum as a cultural platform, expressing a desire to sharpen the understanding of the importance of culture and the arts. We see Louisiana Channel as an integral part of a museum for the 21st century, capable of engaging a new generation in our cultural heritage, in an intelligent present and an ambitious future.

It has always been Louisiana’s role to stimulate discussion of society through the insights of art and artists, and the same goes for Louisiana Channel.
(from Louisiana Channel)

Art and Social Ideals: Public Image Collections

Public Image Databases

Fashion and Textiles

Art Related Videos

Google Image Search