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 …

National Gallery of Denmark

Site: http://collection.smk.dk/#/en/ Conditions: The National Gallery of Denmark has initiated the campaign SMK Open to digitise and make available their collections with no restrictions 'During the first stage of the project, some 40,000 works will be made accessible. Approximately 15,000 of these will be available as high-resolution files that anyone can use for any purpose – …

York Museums Trust

Website: https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/collections/ Conditions: Collections Image Policy A few key points to remember about the images that YMT has published on its online collection: All images currently published in the online collection are free from known third-party copyright restrictions All images in the online collection are free to download All images in the online collection are …

Institute of Realism of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period – REALonline

Website: http://realonline.imareal.sbg.ac.at A website hosted by the University of Salzburg, containing searchable files of images and objects from the Middle Ages. The website is entirely in German, and the English search function doesn't appear to work. If you can negotiate through the somewhat cumbersome search interface there are wonderful pictures. Once you have selected images choose …

City of Antwerp Museums

Website: https://dams.antwerpen.be Institutions: includes the Rubens House, Plantin Moretus Museum (printing), Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library, MAS and more. Their online collections database is being constantly updated. The interface is available on in Dutch at the moment. There are some guides to searching here: https://dams.antwerpen.be/api/lod-search The images are available for download directly as low res JPEGs or high …

Science Museum Group, UK

Website: http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/search?filter[image_license]=true Conditions: Images found on the above link are free to use for non-commercial use according to Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence This licence allows you to: BY (Attribution): Copy, distribute, display and perform our copyrighted work – and derivative works based upon it – but only if you give us credit in the way …

BnF – Bibliothèque nationale de France

Website: http://catalogue.bnf.fr/recherche-uni-images-cartes.do?pageRech=imc Conditions: in summary Some commercial use of images may be free. There are two sources on the website: one says free, one says a charge Non commercial use is definitely free Images which are already digitised and online are available at high-res free of charge If a reproduction charge is made, there is an 80% reduction …

Europeana Collections

Website: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en Conditions: Europeana is the digital platform for European cultural heritage. Many of the images have no use restrictions on them and are free to use for any purpose. To search for these, tick the Free Re-use box on the left side of the search filters. The re-use conditions for free may be affected …

University of Leiden / Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands

Website: https://socrates.leidenuniv.nl/R/?func=search-simple&local_base=gen01-disc Conditions: The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) has brought in more than 2,400 photos to Wikipedia. Leiden University Libraries (UBL), which manages this photo collection, has made this donation possible together with the Working Group on Special Scientific Libraries (WSWB). Imports of these images in Wikimedia Commons (the "Image …

Livrustkammaren / The Swedish Armoury

Website: http://emuseumplus.lsh.se/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=literature&moduleFunction=search&lang=en Collection: Here you can search in the Royal Armoury, Skokloster Castle and Hallwyl museum collection online database. You can find information on museum collections, images of objects and museum environments and the people who have made, owned and used the objects. These include paintings, weapons, furniture and costumes but also the accounts, books and …

The British Library’s Flickr Photostream

Website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/ Conditions: The British Library’s collections on Flickr Commons offer access to millions of public domain images, which we encourage you to explore and re-use. Source: https://www.flickr.com/people/britishlibrary/ (via @kylenano)

The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Website: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search Conditions: They are so cool and Dutch they don't even have conditions. Just get out there and use their images any way you like is their attitude. Source: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/organisation/terms-and-conditions

Yale Center for British Art

Website: http://britishart.yale.edu/collections/search Conditions: Thousands of images of works in the Center’s collection believed to be in the public domain are available for free through the Center’s online collection catalogue. Under Yale University’s Open Access Policy, anyone may use the Center’s open access material without further application, authorization, or fees due to the Center or to Yale. Source: http://britishart.yale.edu/collections/using-collections/image-use

NPG, National Portrait Gallery, London

Website: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/ Conditions: Where available, through this self-service licensing and download facility, images can be obtained for reproduction in non-commercial scholarly books and journals, and certain other specified non-commercial uses, free of charge. Where not available through this facility, images must be obtained through our other licensing options, and additional costs (and therefore charges) will apply. …

The National Gallery, London

Website: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk Conditions: This waiver is intended for projects in which the scholar is personally responsible for paying reproduction fees and is not available to commercial organisations. We consider a project to be scholarly when its primary intention is to broaden knowledge and when it is based on original research. Exclusions - the following uses are …