ART 231 - Prehistoric to the Renaissance

Search collections of photographs, wallpaper, jewelry, home furnishings, architectural drawings, clothing, and more, from the opulent to the everyday. While half of the object collections are on view at our historic sites, the Collections Access database is your chance to discover thousands of treasures not usually accessible to the public. You can also make an appointment to visit the Library and Archives in Boston to research archival collections in person.

The Kunstmuseum Basel’s Collection Online website provides over 4,100 photographs of our works for download; all images are in the public domain.

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. The Library of Congress offers broad public access to these materials as a contribution to education and scholarship.

Collection consists of masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age, including Rembrandt.

The mission of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts includes making the outstanding works of art in its collections accessible to a global audience – both the objects and what we know about them. Wherever possible, this information will be shared free of charge and with few or no restrictions on its use.

One of the world’s largest single-artist collections. 1,150 paintings and some 18,000 prints.

Collections Online has information on almost 800,000 artworks, objects and specimens from Te Papa’s collections; from dinosaur teeth to contemporary art, buzzy bee to Xena. Collection areas cover Taonga Maori, Pacific Cultures, History, Photography, Art, Botany and Zoology. These items are complemented by over 190,000 images, with over 60,000 available for high resolution download. There’s also a wealth of information on related people, places, topics, species and research from Te Papa.

NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 51,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) provides online access to images from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) historical collections. IHM is available through NLM’s Digital Collections, a free online resource of biomedical books and still and moving images.

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

Did you know that more than 180,000 of the items in our Digital Collections are in the public domain?
That means everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways. The Library now makes it possible to download such items in the highest resolution available directly from the Digital Collections website.

New and innovative research resource on Rembrandt paintings worldwide ▪ Freely accessible ▪ Ever-growing ▪ Inter-institutional ▪ Multidisciplinary ▪ Sustainable platform for sharing information ▪ In-depth art historical information ▪ Conservation history & technical documentation ▪ High resolution images and texts

One of the most complete collections of Dutch 17th-century painting including works by Rembrandt.

Smarthistory is a leading resource for the study of art and cultural heritage. Our growing collection of videos and essays are designed to be engaging and conversational and cover art that ranges from the paleolithic to the present.

Search the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ collections, which contain the official records of the Smithsonian, as well as personal papers, special collections, records of professional societies, and oral/video histories relating to the history of the Smithsonian.

SMK in Sølvgade in Copenhagen is an excellent frame for the art collection of the Danish people. But not everybody has easy acces to the physical museum and when you visit the building – and if you see all the artworks on display – you’ll only have experienced 0.7% of the entire collection.

By default, the copyright to SMK’s photos of art belongs to the museum itself. However, SMK has chosen to waive these rights. This means that all photos of Public Domain artworks on this site are also in the Public Domain and free to use.

The Web Gallery of Art is a searchable database of European fine arts and architecture (8th-19th centuries), currently containing over 44.800 reproductions. Artist biographies, commentaries, guided tours, period music, catalogue, free postcard and mobile services are provided.

Find thousands of freely licensed digital books, artworks, photos and images of historical library materials and museum objects.

Museo is a visual search engine that connects you with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Rijksmuseum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the New York Public Library Digital Collection (more to come!). Every image you find here is in the public domain and completely free to use, although crediting the source institution is recommended!