Art Collections
Museums may allow you to search some or all of their collections. Image sizes and extent of description will vary from museum to museum. Search for museum websites and evaluate to determine if they provide searchable collections online or virtual exhibits. A website that compiles museum links is: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/museums.html. Below are selected museums with extensive online collections.
- Art UK
- Collection of 200,000+ oil paintings from local and national museum collections in the United Kingdom. The site is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation, and participating museums and collections.
- British Museum
- Use Search box or Advanced Search options, limit to objects with images online.
- Europeana Art
- Europeana Art introduces you to artists and artworks from across Europe. Explore over 1 million paintings, drawings, prints and other artworks from European public and private archives, galleries and museums, ranging from ancient Roman sculpture to modern design.
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
- Getty Open Content Program
- The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
- La Fayette: Database of American Art from French National Collections (1620-1940)
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Searchable online collection of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Atlas est une base qui permet de consulter l'ensemble des œuvres exposées dans le musée, soit près de 30000 oeuvres. (Interface is in French.) Try using "Recherche simple" for artist name.
- Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
- Contains 76,000+ works from the MoMA, all available online and enhanced search filters.
- National Gallery, London
- Use search box or other options available
- National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
- Use search boxes to "Search the Collection"
- Rijksmuseum
- One of the world’s leading museums in Amsterdam has a ground-breaking new online presentation of 125,000 works in its collection.
- Smithsonian Institution
- Search over 13.3 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 2.5 million online media files.
- Tate Modern
- A high-quality collection of images that have been tagged with descriptive qualities like "hope," "nature," or death." Find an individual artwork and scroll down to EXPLORE at the bottom of the record to find links to other images, concepts or topic
