Subject Guides: History of Art: Find Images

Image Collections

Art and Architecture
Art and Architecture provides access to images of works held in the collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The collections can be browsed or searched. Whilst it is possible to download free images from this site, this infringes the copyright regulations stated by the Courtauld Institute. In order to adhere to the copyright, any images used for educational purposes have to be purchased via the website or you can paste a web link for the image into your presentation and open the website from there to discuss the image.

Artstor (Artstor platform) [accessible until 1st August 2024] This link opens in a new window
ARTstor is a digital library of nearly 2 million images of works of art and architecture from a wide range of cultures and time periods. You can use the features in ARTstor to examine works of art in more detail, and the images can be downloaded free of charge and used in your essays and presentations. The benefit of using ARTstor is that you do not need to worry about copyright issues as all of the contents are clear for use for educational purposes.
The Artstor Digital Library gives access to: over 300 collections with more than 2 million images and related data; the tools to actively use those images; and a restricted usage environment that seeks to balance the rights of content providers with the needs and interests of content users.

Accessibility information

Art Uk
Art UK is the online home for every public art collection in the UK. We are a charity, and our website represents a collaboration between over 3,300 British institutions.
Through our work, we make art available for everyone – for enjoyment, learning and research.
Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur
This site is in German, but you may still find it useful as it contains around 2 million images on art and architecture in 13 European countries.

Europeana: the cultural collections of Europe This link opens in a new window
A portal which gives access to digitized books, maps, photographs, film clips, newspapers, paintings, museum objects and archival records drawn from Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections.

Accessibility information
Grand Tour This link opens in a new window
This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works gives an insight into the English abroad c1550 to 1850. The resource includes modern photographs of key buildings associated with the Grand Tour and paintings and sketches inspired by the Grand Tour. Images from the collection can be downloaded for educational purposes.
This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works gives an insight into the English abroad c1550 to 1850. The primary material includes letters, diaries and journals, account books, printed guidebooks, published travel writing, maps, paintings, sketches, and architectural drawings. Secondary sources include introductory essays; a searchable, full-text version of John Ingamells Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800; a selection of digitised source material from the Brinsley Ford Archive at the Paul Mellon Centre, London, and an indexed collection of hundreds of modern photographs of Italy, providing a detailed visual source of all the historical sites, palaces and streets visited by tourists.

Accessibility information

Google Art Project
Note: will not work with Internet Explorer 8 - try Chrome or Firefox. This is a collaborative project between Google and some of the world’s leading art museums. You can move around the museums’ galleries using Google’s Street View technology and select works of art that interest you to look at more closely. Selected artworks (marked with +) are available as high resolution images which you can zoom into. The image pages include notes about the artwork. You can also create your own collection of the images available and add your own notes in your collection. You are not permitted to download the images; however, you can use the Share This Page option to obtain a link which you can paste into your presentations and then open the image in the Art Project pages when you want to discuss it. There is a short video guide on the website which explains how to use it.
Mapping Gothic France
A database of images, texts, charts and historical maps, exploring the parallel stories of Gothic architecture and the formation of France in the 12th and 13th centuries, considered in three dimensions.
Met Museum Collection
The Met have made over 200,000 images available via CC0 - these can be legally used however you want, including adapting and remixing them, without the need for attribution. You can search by keyword, filter, or find items in the following collections: Masterpiece Paintings, Cats, Monsters and Mythological Creatures, Met-staches, New York City, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Winter Wonderland, Vincent van Gogh, The Pre-Raphaelite Style, Self-Portraits, Quilts, Gold, Georges Seurat, Arms and Armor, The Monuments Men at The Met, Faces from the Ancient World, Tiffany Glass, Dress to Impress, Art or Design?, and Dishes.
National Galleries Scotland
The entire national art collection of Scotland is now digitally accessible by anybody, from anywhere, via any device, at any time.
National Gallery (UK)
The National Gallery has made 2,385 digital images of their collection available for download. They're free for non-commercial use.
National Gallery (USA)
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. More than 45,000 open access digital images are available free of charge for download and use.
NYPL Public Domain images
In 2016 the New York Public Library released over 180,000 digitised images into the public domain. This means they can be used in any way you like, without the need to ask permission - they are free of copyright.

The collection can be searched by Century Created, by Collection type, by Genre or even by Colour. It includes maps, etchings, engravings, watercolours, manuscripts, book illustrations, drawings archival materials, lithographs and photographs, among other types of image.
Romanes
A database of around 15,000 pictures of Romanesque Sculpture and Architecture
The Rose Window
Medieval Stained Glass Photographic Archive. Over 30,000 photographs of medieval stained glass listed by place and subject matter.
VADS
VADS comprises of a diverse range of collections of visual arts images, for example, from the Imperial War Museum, Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, National Inventory of Continental European Paintings and the National Fine Art Collection amongst others. Images can be used for educational purposes.

Vogue Archive (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution colour page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with indexing enabling images to be searched for by garment type, designer and brand name.

Accessibility information

Warhol Contact Sheets: 1976 - 89
This collection of Warhol’s contact sheets – printed thumbnails from a roll of film – represents the complete range of the American artist’s black-and-white photographic practice from 1976 until his unexpected death in 1987.

York Collections Strengths

We have various significant collections of History of Art print materials. Follow the links below to find out more about each

Stained Glass
The Wormald, Newton and Newbold collections are in the King's Manor Library and can be consulted without prior notice but not borrowed
George Smith Collection
Focusing on British engravers and their work, most of the material in the collection is catalogued and can be accessed via Yorksearch. Items can be consulted in the Borthwick Search Room
Heath Collection
Includes nearly 450 titles illustrative of British engraving from the 17th to the 19th centuries, searchable on Yorsearch and consulted in the Borthwick
York Art Gallery Collection
Consisting of over 3,500 items donated by the Gallery in 2014, this collection is strong in painting, sculpture and graphic arts

Creative Commons Zero

Images which have been made Creative Commons Zero, also known as CCO, are available to use by anyone, however they like. The images are in the Public Domain and can be reproduced, incorporated into other works, modified, and reused, without needing permission and in some cases without even needing to credit the author.

A number of image sites offer CCO works. They are in two broad categories - artworks, and stock photography. The latter may be useful for pepping up presentations or websites; examples of the former are listed below and may be directly useful as part of your degree.

Europeana Collections
Europeana provides an extraordinary 8 million images which are completely free to re-use, covering the areas of Art, Fashion, Maps & Geography, Migration, Natural History, Music and others.
Getty Museum
Thousands of images of artworks are available for download, without charge, under the Getty's Open Content Program. Look for the Download button under the image.
Look and Learn
A database of high-resolution historical and fine art images which come from leading institutions such as the Rijksmuseum, Metropolitan Museum, Wellcome Collection, Musee Carnavalet, Smithsonian, and New York Public Library.
National Library of Wales Framed Works Collection
The National Library of Wales has an important and varied collection of framed works of art. Spanning several centuries, they include excellent examples of landscape, portraiture and genre pictures.
New York Met
375,000 images of artworks from The Met's collection to use, share, and remix without restriction
Paul Mellon Photograph Archive of British Art and Architecture
The archive consists of over 100,000 images of British art and architecture. This includes CCO images, essays and films
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
The Dutch Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam has opened its collection to the public with the majority of its photographed artwork being released under a CC0+ license that requires attribution. You must create a free account in order to download.
Yale Center for British Art
The Center provides free and open access to images of works in the public domain and certain other materials, and hopes to encourage further the use and reuse of its public domain resources by all who may have access to them.
Walters Art Museum
Because the Walters owns or has jurisdiction over the objects in its collection and owns or customarily obtains the rights to any imaging of its collection objects, it has adopted the Creative Commons Zero: No Rights Reserved or CC0 license to waive copyright and allow for unrestricted use of digital images and metadata by any person, for any purpose

Islamic Art and Architecture

Here is a comprehensive resource list with links to a huge number of open source online images and texts related to the study of Islamic art and architecture, put together by Richard McClary in the History of Art Department.

York Digital Library

York Digital Library (YODL) contains multimedia resources used in or created out of teaching, research and study at the University. The digital library is in a developmental stage but already holds a growing number of image collections to support the History of Art department. Some of the material is public, some of the collections can be accessed by members of the University only and some collections are restricted to students taking certain courses. All of the images which you are able to find in YODL are available for you to use within your essays and presentations. Remember to login so that you can see the full range of images available to you. The Digital Library also contains archive material and rare books.

Copyright information

For advice on copyright in studying, teaching and research, visit the Copyright SubjectGuide: subjectguides.york.ac.uk/copyright. This contains specific advice on using images in your work.

You can also email lib-arthistory@york.ac.uk