Website: https://www.si.edu/openaccess Conditions: Smithsonian Open Access is an initiative that removes Smithsonian copyright restrictions from about 2.8 million of its digital collection images and nearly two centuries of data. This means that people everywhere can now download, transform and share this open access content for any purpose, for free, without further permission from the Smithsonian. … Continue reading Smithsonian Open Access
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Website: https://high.org/explore/ Conditions: Professional images of objects in the collection are available for high-quality print publishing and commercial uses. To obtain high-resolution image files and copyright information, please contact the Rights and Reproductions Office with the artist, title, and accession number if possible. The High does not charge fees for personal, scholarly, research, educational, or editorial … Continue reading High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Old Book Illustrations
Website: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/ 'Old Book Illustrations was born of the desire to share illustrations from a modest collection of books, which we set out to scan and publish. With the wealth of resources available online, it became increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to explore other collections and include these images along with our own. Although … Continue reading Old Book Illustrations
American Antiquarian Society
Website: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/digitalaas Digital images catalogue: https://gigi.mwa.org Conditions: You may freely download and use any of these images for your own research, for teaching and presentations, or for non-commercial projects. There is no fee for this service; the Society's preferred credit line for all uses is: "Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society" Source: https://americanantiquarian.org/reproductions
NGV, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Website: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/ Conditions: 'The NGV Collection contains approximately 75,000 works of art and approximately 90% of its records are available for viewing here. More than 30,000 images of works in the Public Domain are available to download at high resolution for free for publications and non-commercial use by clicking on the download icon. We are … Continue reading NGV, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Birmingham Museums Trust (UK)
Website: http://dams.birminghammuseums.org.uk/asset-bank/action/viewDefaultHome?browseType=accessLevels Conditions: Thousands of our out-of-copyright images are now available for all to use under a Creative Commons Zero licence (CC0). More images are regularly being added. Images that are available for CC0 usage are marked as such at the bottom of their page. Source: search landing page.
State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Website: https://hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/explore/artworks Conditions: Partially free. Images may be used free of charge for some kinds of academic work. However, images for publications still need to be requested and paid for as usual. The State Hermitage permits the use of the pictures of items from its collections and also the views of its buildings and halls … Continue reading State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Creative Commons Search
Website: https://search.creativecommons.org Conditions: CCSearch is the newly-out-of-beta search engine for around 300 million images marked as being freely licensed for Creative Commons use, across the internet. Its potential is good, but brings up a lot of modern and amateur images from Flickr and the like, even though many of the source sites are museums, galleries … Continue reading Creative Commons Search
The Christopher L. Jorgensen Collection
Website: https://somedarkplace.com Conditions: This site is an ongoing digital cataloging project of a private collection of cabinet cards and cartes des visites, photographic images produced between 1859 and 1900. This site is updated daily. Source: Many thanks to Christopher L. Jorgenson for alerting us to his private collection, and for putting high res images online.
Rawpixel
Website: https://www.rawpixel.com Conditions: For a free account, you must join to download, and are limited to 100 downloads per month. 'Our goal is to create the world’s best design resource from within the public domain. We are sourcing and digitally enhancing thousands of antique books and chromolithographic plates to unlock the inspirational design treasures of the past. As … Continue reading Rawpixel
Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM)
Website: https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/?show_on_view=false Conditions: If the content is marked 'public domain', it can be used for any purpose. Permitted Use. You assume all risk and responsibility for your use of any Content obtained through the SLAM Websites. Content in the Public Domain. Some Content on the SLAM Websites is in the public domain (“Public-domain Content”). You may download … Continue reading Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM)
PICRYL: The World’s Largest Public Domain Site
Website: https://picryl.com/ About: PICRYL is a search site linking together public doman image archives, many of which have been listed on this site previously, making it a very convenient central place to start searching for images. Images are available to download at the resolutions available from the provider. Please note that if you wish to … Continue reading PICRYL: The World’s Largest Public Domain Site
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Website: http://art.famsf.org/ Conditions: free for low-res non commercial use The Materials are made available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws. Users may download these files for their own use, subject to any additional terms or restrictions which may be applicable to … Continue reading Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Birmingham Museum of Art [USA]
Site: https://artsbma.org/collection/ Conditions: Open Content Program The Birmingham Museum of art makes available digital images of works in the Museum’s collection believed to be in the public domain. Images are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Museum for authorization to use these images. They are … Continue reading Birmingham Museum of Art [USA]
Indianapolis Museum of Art (Newfields)
Site: http://collection.imamuseum.org Conditions: Free images available but hard to find. The official line is: 'Many images of public domain artworks are available for free download from the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields' collection pages. Simply look for the download icon to access a high resolution JPG file and begin using the image for any purpose. If you require … Continue reading Indianapolis Museum of Art (Newfields)
