• Imago: Colby Visual Resources
  
• Search Engines for Internet Images
• General Art Websites for Image Research
• Art Image Databases
• Commercial / Stock Image Providers
• Museums & Galleries
• Image Galleries from National and Research Libraries
• Images in Journals / Periodicals
• Ancient and Medieval Cultures
• Architecture
• Asian Studies
• Art Reproductions in Books
• Other Image Research Guides on the WWW
• Copyright and Using Images
• Administering Digital Image Collections

Search Engines For Internet Images

• Google Images. Advanced search.
• Infomine Scholarly Internet Resource. Good for locating quality image sites beyond the art world.
• Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, this is a keyword-searchable site to locating online exhibitions from archives, libraries and museums. A fantastic tool!  
• Librarians Internet Index. Use the guided search to Arts and Humanities, or input Images in Search Box for a comprehensive listing of quality image websites.
• OAIster. University of Michigan’s search engine to “find the pearls” on the web. Select option for images.
• Yahoo Image Search. Most popular searches, or do an advanced search.

General Art Websites for Image Research

• Artchive.   
• Artcyclopedia.   Commercial in nature, with basic information on artists including images of major works. 
• ArtLex. A free image-based art dictionary on the WWW. 
• Grove Art Online. [Licensed to Colby users only]. Quality, researched encyclopedia articles on major artists, movements in art, art by country, and techniques. Search image links.
• Oxford Reference Online: Art and Architecture.   [Licensed to Colby users only]. Oxford University Press’ arts related dictionaries and encyclopedias: reliable information for the student needing definitions, dates, and researched background information on an art topic. 

Art Image Databases

• ARTstor. [Licensed to Colby users only]. With over 500,000 images in a fully searchable and browsable database of art images and info identifying and describing those images, ARTstor features art images from all periods and cultures, including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, and other forms of visual culture. Save images to your own workspace online, or download the offline image viewing software to make your own presentations.
• Insight Visual Collections:  Images of Art, History and Culture.   Extensive digitized visual collections from major research institutions utilizing Luna Insight imaging software: maps, fine art, prints, advertising art, posters, photographs, manuscripts, and more.
• World Images Kiosk.   From the California State Universities.
• Web Gallery of Art.   Virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 15,400 reproductions.

Commercial / Stock Image Providers

• Art Resource. Extensive fine art stock photo archive. Images are watermarked unless licensed from Art Resource. The size and usability of the image database makes it an excellent research tool for locating and identifying images.

• Bridgeman Art Library. Another excellent fine art stock photo archive, with coverage of contemporary and historical periods, fine arts and artifacts, and functional search features.

• Corbis Stock Photography and Images. Excellent resource for licensed photos and reproductions of news and commercial photography, graphic design, and art photography, from the major news services, magazine publishers, and photo archives. The searchable database provides yet another avenue for image research. Corbis is the authorized distributor of images from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Bettman Archive and other historical print and photo archives.

• Daily News Photo Archive. A comprehensive visual history of New York and world events captured in unique Daily News style, with photographs dating back to 1880.

• Getty Images. Creative and Editorial photo service. Register and create your own lightbox.

• Scholars Resource (Saskia). Provides high quality images, (often in several views of the same artwork),  with comprehensive coverage of artworks for teaching. Image collections from Saskia Ltd., Davis Art Images, Hartill Art Associates, Archivision and Bridgeman Art Library are represented. Scholars Resource licenses high quality images and metadata in consistent formats from multiple vendors at one online source.  Database images in thumbnails only.

Museums & Galleries

• Art History Resources on the Web:  Museums and Galleries.

• Asian Studies Museum Collections. From the Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies website.

• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Image Base.

• J. Paul Getty Museum. Collections: Explore Art.

• Joconde: Catalogue des Collections des Musees de France. Archéologie, beaux-arts, arts décoratifs, ethnologie, histoire, sciences et techniques.

• The Louvre. Databases.

• Metropolitan Museum of Art. Works of Art.

• Musée. International Museum Directory, searchable and browsable by subject.

• Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet.  The premiere French museum dedicated to Asiatic Arts, located Paris. Explore its WWW collections, organized by culture.

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Collections Search.

• Museum of Modern Art. Online Collection.   Browse or search the collection.

• National Gallery of Art (U.S.). The Collection. Search the entire collection by artist or subject matter, or take web tours of featured artists or exhibitions,

• National Gallery of Art (London). Collections Online.

• Palace Museum, Beijing.

• Smithsonian Institution Museums.  Link to the Smithsonian Museums and Galleries: African Art, American Art, Freer, Hirshhorn, National Portrait Gallery, Cooper-Hewitt and others.

• State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

• Tate. Collections Online. The Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art. All works can be found on this site, each with its own information page.

• Tokyo National Museum Collection.

• Vatican Museums.

• Victoria and Albert Museum

• Virtual Library Museums Page.

Image Galleries from National and Research Libraries

• Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Gallica.

  Digitized rare books, manuscripts, early imprints and portraits of musicians.

• British Library. Images Online. Search images by subject, title or keyword. Images Online provides access to thousands of the greatest images from the British Library’s collections of historical prints and photographs, manuscripts, rare books and maps spanning almost 3000 years with material from every continent.  Extremely useful for illustrating historical topics.

• Harvard University. Visual Information Access.   Digitized special visual collections at Harvard, everything from theater design to women’s history to art collections throughout Harvard. Some images are restricted to Harvard users.

• Library of Congress. American Memory Project. Open access and digital preservation of all types of visual, sound and textual objects for the study history and culture, from our national library.

• New York Public Library. Digital Gallery. Voted Best Research Site for 2006 by museum professionals. Free and open access to thousands of high quality images depicting the arts, history, culture, the sciences, buildings and industry, and more, from the rich research collections at NYPL. Very well organized, and easy to search and browse.

Images in Journals / Periodicals

• Academic Search Premier. Images.   [Licensed to Colby Users Only]. Select the “Images” tab on the top right menu bar to search for photos and images in a wide range of electronic journals in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

• Art Abstracts. [Licensed to Colby Users Only].  Use this to find art reproductions in journals published from 1984 to the present. Use the “Document Type” text box, and choose “Art Reproduction”.

• Art Index Retrospective.   [Licensed to Colby Users Only]. Use this to find art reproductions in journals published from 1929-1984. Use the “Document Type” text box, and choose “Art Reproduction.

• Harpweek.   [Licensed to Colby Users Only]. Use this to find historical / period illustrations, political cartoons, etc. from the digital version of Harper’s Weekly, the illustrated 19th century periodical, 1857-1912.   Limit searches to “illustration” or “cartoon”.

• JSTOR.   {Licensed to Colby Users Only]. Subscription access to over 50 full text Art and Art History Journals, including images. Limit searches to “caption titles.”

Ancient and Medieval Cultures 

• Corsair: Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts. From the Pierpont Morgan Library in NYC.

• British Museum Compass: Collections Online.

• Digital Scriptorium. From the University of California, Berkeley. Image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts, intended to unite scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research.

• Enluminures. 80,000 images from French manuscript illumination, arranged by subject, and also searchable.

• Images of Medieval Art and Architecture. Alison Stones’ excellent website from the University of Pittsburgh. Part of the  Digital Research Library, University of Pittsburgh.

• Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts. From the National Library of the Netherlands.

• Perseus Digital Library: Art and Archeology. Hosted by Tufts University.

• Virtual Showcase.   From Utrecht University.   

Architecture

•   Digital Archive of Architecture. Compiled by Professor Jeffrey Howe at Boston College. Representative collection of architectural images throughout history from locations throughout Europe and the U.S.
• Landscape Architecture Image Resource (LAIR). A collaborative project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and key university programs in landscape architecture.
• Society of Architectural Historians. Image Resources links
• SPIRO. Image database of the Architecture Visual Resources Center, University of California, Berkeley.

Asian Studies

• Asian Arts. A forum for scholars, museums and commercial galleries featuring highlights of exhibitions in public and private institutions and galleries
• Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art
• IDEAS Project. The Image Database to Enhance Asian Studies. A collaborative projective of Colorado College, Earlham College, Lake Forest College, and St Olaf College.

Art Reproductions in Books

• ART REF N6538.N5 T46 1991

  The Black artist in America : an index to reproductions, by Dennis Thomison.

  Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1991.

• REF GT730 .S48 1977b

  Costume Reference, by Marion Sichel. London : Batsford, 1977. In 8 volumes.

• Images, Illustrations, Reproductions: Book, by Ruth Thomas. Extensive web bibliography of print resources to locate illustrations, from Boston University Library. Check Colby for local holdings.

• ART REF ND 205 S575

  Index to reproductions of American paintings appearing in more than 400 books, by Lyn Wall Smith.  Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1977

• ART REF ND 45 M6

  Index to reproductions of European paintings : a guide to pictures in more than three hundred books, by Isabel Monro. New York : Wilson, 1956

• ART REF NE 90 P17 1983

  Print index : a guide to reproductions, by Pamela Parry. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1983

• ART REF NA202 .T4 1991 

  World architecture index : a guide to illustrations, by  Edward H. Teague.  New York : Greenwood Press, 1991

• ART REF ND 45 H38.

  World Painting Index, by  Patricia Havlice.  Metuchen : Scarecrow Press, 1977. Supplements 1982, 1995, 2003

• ART REF ND40 .W75 1992

  World's master paintings : from the early Renaissance to the present day : a comprehensive listing of works by 1,300 painters and a complete guide to their locations worldwide, by Christopher Wright. London ; New York : Routledge, 1992.

• Consult Colby Libraries catalog for comprehensive print catalogs from particular museums, as well as catalogues raisonnes. 

Other Image Research Guides on the WWW

• Boston University Libraries. Finding Images on the Web.   Ed. by Ruth Thomas.

• Cornell University Libraries. Find Image Resources.   

• Image Providers Directory, by Don Beetham. Sponsored by the Visual Resources Association.

• Looking for good art, Part 1: Web Resources and Image Databases, by David Mattison.  From  Information Today. 12, no. 8 (September 2004). Parts 2 and 3 of this article are linked to this page.  

• Smith College Libraries. Find Images.

• Visual Resources Center, University of California at Irvine. Finding and Using Images. 

Copyright and Using Images

• Copyright and Image Management, by Georgia Harper. From the Office of the General Counsel, University of Texas at Austin.

• Visual Resources Association. Resources.   Tools for visual resources professionals, including intellectual property / copyright guidelines.    

Administering Digital Image Collections

• Digital Image Database Standards Checklist: Technical, Functional, Content and Access Recommendations. 2006.   Art Libraries Society of North America.

• AHDA Visual Arts [formerly Visual Arts Data Service.] From the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester, in the UK.  The Creating Digital Resources page include valuable guides to good practice.

• ART REF ZA4084.A78 D54 2003

  Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty First Century. Ed. Susan Wyngaard. Binghamton: Haworth Press, 2003. Copublished as Journal of Library Administration 39, nos. 2-3 (2003).

• Getty Center. Research Institute. Conducting Research. Links to Getty image data standards, the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Union List of Artist Names, Thesaurus of Geographic Names, etc. are found here.

• Visual Resources Association. Home page for visual resources professionals.

Last Updated Date: 02/11/2009    
Created by:  Ericson, Margaret D. 
Email: mericson@colby.edu