Research Guides: Art History: Home

Books and eBooks - Art History

The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture

The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art

Universal Principles of Art: 100 Key Concepts for Understanding,Analyzing, and Practicing Art

Articles - Art History

ArtStor (Ithaka)

A digital library of approximately 400,000 images from a wide range of cultures and time periods.

Academic Search Complete (Ebsco)

This database has full-text academic articles in almost every subject, including quite a few peer-reviewed and scholarly journals. A good choice for almost any topic.

JSTOR (Ithaka)

JSTOR provides academic journal articles from thousands of titles, with particular emphasis on arts, social sciences, history, literature, ethnic and area studies, and the humanities.

Credo Reference Academic Core (Infobase)

Includes reference encyclopedias and handbooks, which feature easy-to-read overviews and background information on thousands of topics. Credo also features videos, illustrations, photographs, visual aids, and maps.

Videos - Art History

Art & Architecture - Films on Demand

Watch award-winning documentaries and educational programs about periods in art history, art appreciation, applied art, and architecture.

Art History - Academic Video Online (AVON)

Educational programs from well-known producers like A&E, BBC, and PBS.

Image Research - Art History

Online Collections Database
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany
Artworks
Palazzo Pitti, Firence, Italy
Artworks
Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Firenze, Italy
Explore | Museo Egizio, Torino, Italy
Museo Egizio, Torino, Italy
Search the Online Catalogue
Musei Vaticani, Rome, Italy
Selected Works
Le Louvre, Paris, France
Masterpieces
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
The Collections
National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece
Collections
Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece
Explore the Collection
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
National Museum of Egyptian Civilization
Collection Online
The British Museum, London, England
Online Collections
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
Explore the Collection
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY
Collection | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Archives of American Art
Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
Search the Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Collections | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Collection | J.Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA
J.Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, CA
Collections | University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Collections | Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco
Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco
Google Cultural Institute
Explore collections from around the world with Google Arts & Culture, created by the Google Cultural Institute.
WikiArt
Our primary goal is to make world’s art accessible to anyone and anywhere. WikiArt already features some 150.000 artworks by 2.500 artists, localized on 5 languages.

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These artworks are in museums, universities, town halls, and other civic buildings of more than 70 countries. Most of this art is not on public view. With your active involvement, we are planning to cover the entire art history of the Earth – from cave artworks to modern private collections. We also provide you with tools for translation on as many languages as needed.
UC Shared Images
CDL Digital Special Collections maintains this page of 19 collections comprising over 30,100 images, as part of the UC Shared Images program. Consult the list below for access to the collections through LUNA Insight and LUNA Commons.
Catalogues Raisonnés database
Maintained by the International Foundation for Art Research.

Many art museums host images of and information about artworks in their collections on their own websites. Below is a selection of the digital collection search of some notable international museums:

National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.)
NGA Images offers more than 51,000 open access digital images of artworks from the National Gallery of Art's collection.
National Gallery (London) - Paintings
Find paintings from the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met)
Met Museum Open Access provides access to over 400,000 high-resolution digital images of artworks from their collection.
The Getty Museum
The Getty Open Content Program offers access to over 100,000 digital images of artworks from their collection, including paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, and more.
The British Museum
The British Museum's Collection Online provides access to over 4.5 million objects, including images, with a focus on world history and culture.
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Open Access Initiative provides access to millions of digital assets from the Smithsonian's museums, including images, 3D models, and data.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
LACMA's Collections Online provides access to over 80,000 high-resolution images of artworks from their collection.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
MoMA's Collection Online offers access to over 85,000 images of artworks from their collection, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and more.
Art Institute Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago's Collection offers access to over 52,000 images of artworks including paintings, sculptures, prints, and decorative arts.
Rijksmuseum (Netherlands)
Rijksmuseum's Rijkstudio offers high-resolution images of artworks from their collection, with over 700,000 artworks available for free download and creative use.

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. Contains over 94 million copyright free image and media files.
Creative Commons Search Portal
Creative Commons is a system of licensing that was developed as an alternative to the copyright system. Most works that are licensed as Creative Commons are free to use, but many have some sort of catch, such as attribution, no derivatives, or non-commercial use. Make sure you check what sort of CC license your chosen images are licensed under.
Pixabay
All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty-free for anything you like, even in commercial applications. Attribution is not required.
Flickr.com
Flickr.com has millions of images to search, but be careful! Not all images on Flickr are copyright free. To search for images with Creative Commons licenses, make sure you select "All Creative Commons" from the search menu.