Research Guides: Research in the Art LIbrary: Digital Image Collections

Finding Images

Most art historical research involves finding supporting images to illustrate your arguments. Images can be appended to the end of your paper and also used for in-class PowerPoint presentations. Finding high-quality images can be difficult when using only free online sources, and use of some images may violate copyright laws. The resources on this page provide access to high-quality images available specifically for research and instructional use.

Remember: if you cannot find an image you need online, you may find it in a related monograph or exhibition catalogue in the Art Library. Use the in-house scanner to make a digital reproduction for your paper or presentation.

ARTstor
Repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images, from across many periods and cultures. Architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, and other forms of visual culture are represented. Provides tools to actively use images for scholarship, teaching, and learning.
JSTOR
Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published from volume 1, issue 1. Please note, most journals have a “moving wall” (time lag) of three to five years between the most current issue published and content available on JSTOR. Coverage spans the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

Online Image Collections

In addition to the websites and databases provided here, you can find digital collections on many other museum and archives websites.

The British Museum
Flickr: The Commons
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalogue
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Collections
National Gallery
Selections from the museum's collections of European and American paintings, sculpture, photographs and decorative arts.
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
The NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS)
Search over 7.4 million records, with 568,100 images, video and sound files from Smithsonian museums, archives, and libraries.
The Louvre
Tate Collection
Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art.
Vatican Museums
Images from the museums' diverse collections.
Virtual Library: Museums
An extensive directory providing access to museum websites worldwide organized geographically. Many museums have online image collections available.

Google Art Project

The Google Art Project is a unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to enable people to discover and view more than one thousand artworks online in extraordinary detail.

Explore museums with Street View technology. Discover featured artworks at high resolution and use the custom viewer to zoom into paintings. Create your own collection and save specific views of any of the 1000+ artworks. Comments can be added to each painting and the whole collection can then be shared with friends and family.