Publicly Available Image Collections

Artsy features almost 200,000 high-quality contemporary art images from several major galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, and art fairs.

The goal of this site is to provide a "high-quality, [complete] and well-structured online repository of fine art." You can browse by artist, movement, nationality, technique, style, and several other criteria to explore this fairly comprehensive, crowd-sourced image collection.

VIRCONA is a resource for discovering and learning about Native North American visual artists. Featuring over 300,000 images of work from the 1850's through the present, it was "created to be a shared resource...for the nonprofit use of educational, research, scholarly, and cultural institutions."

This link will let you browse the Getty Museum's open content image collection. These images are "free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose.”

This resource features over 40,000 images of artworks from museums, galleries, and cultural institutions in 40 countries. Some images are presented in "gigapixel" format, allowing for extremely detailed viewing. Using Google Street View technology, you can also take a virtual "walk" through places such as the Doge's Palace in Venice, the National Museum of Korea, and Versailles.

Explore the collections of the Harvard Art Museums, including the Fogg (western art from the Middle Ages through the present), the Busch-Reisinger (German/Austrian art from the 7th century through the present, with a focus on Secession, Expressionism and Bauhaus), and the Arthur M. Sackler (ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art).

Browse the Met's jewelry collection, or search "armor" to see objects from their extensive collection of protective wear.

Search the V&A's database of almost 300,000 items from their extensive art and design collections.

An online gallery of high-quality images from anatomical atlases in the National Library of Medicine’s collection.

Digital versions of past exhibits from Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum. Includes teacher’s resources.

An auction house specializing in textiles and fashion. You can browse images of their upcoming and past sales.

Though still under development, this site includes images and information representing about 75% of the Cooper-Hewitt’s collection of textiles, product design, decorative arts, and graphic design.

For over 40 years, the Cora Ginsberg Gallery has specialized in museum quality antique costume of the 18th and 19th centuries and in European embroideries, silks, and printed textiles of the 17th - 20th centuries. Browse their site for an ever-rotating selection of textiles and costumes.

Search over 30,000 images from the collections of the Costume Institute and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection . You can direct your search by designer, material, geographic location, or era.

Presents image and text for approximately 200 objects from the KCI collection, arranged in chronological order.

Explore highlights from the MFA Boston's David & Roberta Logie Department of Textile & Fashion Arts.

Search the collection or browse by era.

This digital collection contains "several rare and unusual published resources of interest to students of western dress and fashion from the 19th to the early 20th-century. Includes historical surveys as well as manufacturers' booklets and sample swatch catalogs."

Images and information from the V&A’s Fashion collection. Key areas include rare 17th-century gowns, 18th-century ‘mantua’ dresses, 1930s eveningwear, 1960s daywear, and post-war couture.