Art History

Gallica, from the Bibliothèque nationale de Franc is one of the major digital libraries available for free via the Internet. It provides access to any type of document: printed documents (books, press and magazines) in image and text mode, manuscripts, sound and iconographic documents, maps and plans.

A digital platform for European heritage that brings together digitized collections materials from over 3000 archives, libraries and museums throughout Europe.

The Getty makes digital images (about 90,000) to which it holds the rights or that are in the public domain freely available online. You can browse all Open Content images or use the search on the Getty Search Gateway and download images identified with a download link. Images used should be credited as follows: "Digital Image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program"

Google Arts & Culture is a non-profit initiative. We work with cultural institutions and artists around the world. Together, our mission is to preserve and bring the world’s art and culture online so it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere.

The JStor platform provides free access to a variety of institutional special collections to researchers, faculty, and students. Collections include: Albright College
Nicaragua Revolution: David Schwartz Collection, Carleton College Haldore Hanson’s China Collection (1937-1938), Chatham University Archives & Special Collections The Minor Bird Chatham University’s archive of their student-led undergraduate literary magazine, Eden Hall Architectural Plants and Drawings, Central Methodist University Archives, Notre Dame University- Louaize, Heinz Gaube Lebanese Architectural Photographs Collection, Lebanese Research Center for Migration and Diaspora Studies (LERC), Roanoke College Digital Collections, Salve Regina University Archives & Special Collections: South Kingstown Colonial Records...

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has made nearly 20,000 images of their collections materials free to search and download without restriction. Users can browse the collection or search the by date, curatorial area, object type, artist or artwork name. Highlights of the image collection include 20th century fashion, Art of Africa, Contemporary Islamic Art, and photography.

On May 16, 2014 the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that 400,000 high resolution digital images of public domain works could be downloaded from the Museum's website for non-commercial use. You do not need to seek permission for use of these images nor is there an associated fee. This initiative is called Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC) and works covered by this initiative are identified by the acronym OASC.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam makes over 125,000 images from the collection available, free of charge. To use them you will need to create a free Rijkstudio account to get started.

The account lets you create your own galleries and download images for your own use. The museum encourages you to create your own masterpieces from the images that you download and has examples of objects, images and videos created from its art works.

Download, share, and reuse more than 4.4 million 2D and 3D digital items from the Smithsonian collections. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

Search the Tate collection online. Tate holds the national collection of British art form 1500 to the present day, and international modern and contemporary art. Its mission is to increase the public’s enjoyment and understanding of British art from the 16th century to the present day and of international modern and contemporary art.

The Web Gallery of Art is a searchable database of European fine art from the medieval ages to the impressionist period (1000-1900). All materials are free to use for noncommercial purposes.