LibGuides: ARCH 3901: Colonial Cities in the French Empire: Images

Selected Image Databases in Art & Architecture

Large repositories of images

ARTstor
Please note that Artstor will be merging with Jstor as of 08/01/2024.

Artstor is a searchable database of digital images and associated catalog data from museum, archives, galleries and libraries from around the globe. ARTstor documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but you do not need to belong to one of those projects to use media hosted here.

Other collections

Digital museum collections are a great place to find high-quality reproductions of works of art, as well as all the information you need to properly caption your images. Below you will find a selection of New York City museums (and a couple of others too), which have strong digital collections online.

A&A Portal: Courtauld Institute of Art
This online portal brings together the collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Courtauld Art Gallery and the Conway Library as well as the photography of Tim Benton.
Archnet Next
Archnet Next is a new iteration of the largest online library focused on the built environments of Muslim societies. Archnet Next is the first major reimagining of the site since 2013. Archnet Next has been completely redesigned to be more responsive to users in all corners of the world and on all sorts of devices in order to remain the essential reference on the architecture, planning, and landscape design in Muslim societies.
Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica
Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and its partners. Online since 1997, it is enriched every week with thousands of new features and today offers access to several million documents
Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica
Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and its partners. Online since 1997, it is enriched every week with thousands of new features and today offers access to several million documents
Culture.fr
Indexes all the databases and resources of the French Ministry of Culture as well as those of local authorities and associations.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection focuses on 18th and 19th century North and South American cartographic materials and includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, and manuscript maps.
DOME
Search the MIT Libraries' digital collections. This collection contains Aga Khan Visual Archive collections.

Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.

Europeana
Europeana brings together the digital collections from cultural and scientific institutions across Europe. Explore 58,245,986 artworks, artifacts, books, films and music from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
Getty Library
The Getty Library's resources across a broad range of physical and digital formats in a single search, including books, journals, and auction catalogs; archives and special collections (including finding aids); photo archive collection records; and full-text articles, images, and e-books from a variety of databases.
Getty Photo Archive Database
The Photo Archive's two million photographs provide supplementary and original pictorial research for the study of fine arts from antiquity to the modern period. The archive's strength lies in the photographic reproduction of western art, architecture, and decorative arts.
Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs
Includes photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.
NYPL Digital Collections
A living database of items digitized from the New York Public Library’s collections. New materials are added every day, among them prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and streaming video. You can search images (with filters for date, genre, and other key features), or browse by collection.
Réunion des Musées Nationaux et du Grand Palais
Since 1946, the Photo Agency of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux et du Grand Palais (a public industrial and commercial establishment under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture) has been officially in charge of promoting and disseminating the collections held in the national museums of France.