Makes available free of charge images and digital objects to which the Academy holds the rights to scholars, educators, and the general public. Images may be downloaded and freely used for personal, educational and scholarly, non-commercial purposes. High resolution images are made selectively available on request.
Images of art and architecture from Southeast and South Asia, the Himalayan region and Indonesia. After creating a free account, low-res images suitable for PowerPoint presentations may be downloaded freely for educational purposes.
Images contributed by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, may be used freely with proper citation under Creative Commons license.
Dr. Ann-Marie Koblauch's research slides of the Ancient Greek work. The collection comprises sites that are not frequently published. From Virginia Tech, available through JSTOR. Permission required to publish.
Images taken or collected by art historian Allan T. Kohl. Copyright either belongs to Kohl or is in the public domain. Images may be used freely for teaching purposes. Particularly helpful for ancient and medieval art.
Free open access collections, most from educational institutions. Covers a wide range of topics, including art, history, and science. Browse here by type of collection.
More than 25,000 images are freely available for download. Images are public domain or have already been offered for free access on the web. Covers all areas of art.
Collection of digital photographs from many different contributors. Images may be used for free for educational purposes (with credit). For publication, rights may be negotiated with the individual photographer. Also a good site for information about the structures.
Search interface for the collection. Public domain images may be used for non-commercial purposes with a Creative Commons license. Commercial use requires a license.
Digital collection of images relating to California, including architecture, art, historical photographs, etc. from California institutions. May be used freely for educational purposes, obtain permission for publication and other uses.
Repository for digital content created by member libraries of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. Each collection has its own licensing requirements. Check the record for the image you want to download. Many are free to use.
Public domain images are freely available in high resolution for both commercial and non-commercial uses. Images still under copyright are available online for study purposes and metadata only may be downloaded.
Images from the Susan H. Douglas Collection of American campaign memorabilia from 1789 to 1960. May be used freely for "private study, scholarship or research" but permission must be obtained for any other uses.
The CC Search tool automatically filters your search to find Creative Commons licensed resources that you can share, use, and remix. However -- Do not assume that all of the results displayed are under a CC license. Always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link.
American and European art. Most are available online and many are zoomable. Images are freely available for educational and non-commercial uses. Commercial or publication uses must obtain permission.
Includes images of all types from libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural institutions (including the Boston Public Library). Images are free to use, though permission must be obtained from any other copyright owners if the works are not in the public domain.
Emphasis on but not limited to early America. Image resources and digitized books, including botanical and zoological illustration, ceramics, and more. Images may be used freely for educational purposes. For other uses, contact the University of Wisconsin Library.
Consortium of college museums in western Massachusetts. Images may be used freely for educational purposes. Contact individual collections for other uses.
Berger was a curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne who brought back over 100,000 pictures from his world travels. They appear to be freely downloadable for teaching and research.
Collaboration of Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Images may be freely used for non-commercial purposes with attribution. Commercial use may be licensed for a fee.
Photographs, objects, and other material related to the history of photography. Images must be licensed by filling out a form. Unclear if there is a fee involved.
Commercial site of stock photography. As of March 2014, images will be available for free if used in an open-embed program that gives credit to the source. Not to be confused with the Getty Museum and Institute.
High resolution images of works from the Getty that are in the public domain and may be used freely. Recent additions include Max Hutzel Photographs of Art and Architecture in Italy and 15th through 18th century tapestries.
Medium resolution images of works in the public domain may be downloaded free of charge. You must contact the Society to obtain high resolution images for publication.
"Features content from over 1200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online." Rights will vary by source.
A rather clunky, old school website that can be slow to load, but it often includes plans for well known buildings or buildings by well known architects.
Full color images from the Monastery of Saint Catherine, on Princeton University site, freely available for educational purposes. Contact site for publishing permissions and larger resolution images.
British history through graphic arts, strongest in 18th-20th century materials. Reproduction in academic journals is free but permission must be obtained first.
Archive of images from the premiere American popular magazine of the 20th century. Millions of historic photographs from the magazine, most never published. Freely available although site states that images may be subject to copyright. Proceed with caution.
London-based picture library specialising in historical pictures and vintage imagery. Features both free public domain images and copyrighted images for which you must pay. Registration is required.
LACMA now allows the free download without restriction of high resolution images believed to be in the public domain. Free images contain a link that says "Download Image." Images with copyright protection contain the link "Order photography" instead.
Provides access to images and records across Yale's cultural heritage collections. Certain public domain images may be used freely. Check individual records.
From the Netherlands Institute in Instanbul. Pertaining mainly to Ottoman architecture of the Balkans, photographed from the 1960s to 1990s. Images may be used freely in publications with proper credit given. Higher resolution images may be obtained by writing to the archive.
Over 30,000 images from collections available for free high resolution download, either under Creative Commons license or under no restrictions at all (depends on the image).
Low resolution images may be used without charge for non-commercial use, such as a school paper or website. Larger resolution images must be purchased.
Over 30,000 works from the Norwegian National Museum available for free download. Contemporary works require permission. Download resolution is decent but not high.
Over one million photos from the National Archives of the Netherlands, covering the years 1865 to 1990, can be viewed online. A subset of 400,000 public domain photos may also be searched.
The complete digitized collections of the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection. Images may be used freely for all non-commercial purposes.
"The Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection...contains objects that represent every inhabited continent and span more than three thousand years of human history." Available via Creative Commons license through JSTOR.
The museum in Taiwan has digitized over 70,000 images and are making them freely available. Although there is an English search interface, the records appear to be available only in Chinese.
"The National Portrait Gallery now provides free downloads of a large range of images from its Collection for academic and non-commercial projects through a new web-site facility. Over 53,000 low-resolution images will now be available free of charge to non-commercial users through a standard 'Creative Common' license and over 87,000 high-resolution images will also be available free of charge for academic uses through the Gallery's own licences."
Images may be downloaded and used for educational purposes freely without fees or permissions. Not all material on the site is accessible, however, and the interface makes it difficult to just find the image collections.
170,000 photographs taken by the U. S. Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information from 1935 to 1945. Most but not necessarily all are in the public domain and freely available.
More than 47,000 public domain images of religious topics, many from the Kessler Reformation Collection. Freely available for educational and non-commercial uses. A small fee applies for publication.
"The use of materials displayed on the museum's websites is authorized exclusively for non-commercial purposes...Images can be used for educational, cultural, and scientific purposes." Must obtain permission for publication.
Fascinating blog about historical photographs with fantastic, high resolution images. Selected smaller size images may be downloaded for non-commercial use. Large size tiffs may be purchased for commercial use.
Images may be used freely for non-commercial purposes. Includes works within the broad categories of Art & Design, History & Culture, and Science & Technology.
"The State Hermitage permits the use of the pictures of items from its collections and also the views of its buildings and halls that are published on the website for personal, educational and information purposes." Permission must be obtained for publication.
Available from the British Library on Flickr Commons. Includes 40,000 maps, architectural drawings, and more. All are in the public domain and free to use. To search the collection, copy its main tag into the search box and add your specific search terms.
Searches across Yale's collections of art, natural history, books, maps, photos, audio and visual. Many are freely available for educational purposes. See copyright information on website.
Includes records for works that include and do not include images. Reproduction information included. Many are in the public domain and may be freely used.
Stock photography site covering many subject areas. Images must be licensed for a fee but Alamy is often much less expensive than other commercial options.
Formerly known as Landslides. Vendor of aerial photography. Many types of photographs available depicting landscapes, cities, and topics such as suburbs, edge cities and New Urbanism.
Commercial vendor that works with museums, galleries, collection and artists to provide art images for reproduction purposes. They now have an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture to cover all 439 Italian state-owned museums for image licensing.
Images of British country houses, gardens, and interiors, along with other architecture. Low resolution, watermarked images may be downloaded, higher resolution images must be purchased.
"Images of Architecture and the Built Environment." Vendor of high quality architectural photographs by well-known photographers. Especially good source for 20th century modernism.
"The premier source of cultural, historical and fine art images." Commercial site, images must be purchased. Includes interesting images of cultural heritage.
"The Lensmen Collection, licensed to Irish Photo Archive, is a unique collection of almost 3.5 million old Irish photos and historical images and offers a fascinating insight into Irish life over the last six decades." Irish historical images and documents available for licensing.
London-based picture library specialising in historical pictures and vintage imagery. Features both free public domain images and copyrighted images for which you must pay. Registration is required.
"inspirational photography to best show the diversity and historical range of places in the National Trust's care." Low resolution images may be downloaded. Higher resolutions must be purchased.
"The NYC Municipal Archives Digital Collections website provides access to more than 1,600,000 items from the Municipal Archives' vast holdings, including photographs, maps, blueprints, motion-pictures and audio recordings." Prints may be purchased. Permission must be obtained and licensing fees paid for publication.
"The Obsidian Collection is a user-friendly, virtual portal for Black culture providing access to images of historical, artistic and cultural significance gathered from Black newspapers, photographers, archives and community groups from around the country. These images are available for licensing and permissions to tell our stories." Note: images are watermarked.
Over 100,000 photographs of British paintings, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, sketchbooks, and exhibitions. More than 44,000 of the images are available for non-commercial re-use with a Creative Commons license.
Subscription based collection of "high-quality digitized images from the fields of arts, culture, and history." Connects 71 mostly German institutions. Trial subscriptions available.
"Provides free worldwide access to a wealth of scholarly research and documentation related to artworks by Robert Rauschenberg in SFMOMA's permanent collection." Includes downloadable images for educational use. Licensing fees and permissions are needed for publication and reproduction.
Commercial distributor of high quality art and architecture images from a number of vendors. Images may be purchased for teaching or publication. Brown professors may request that images be purchased for the Instructional Image Collection.
Images of works in the collection, including all kinds of material culture and crafts. Downloadable. Contact museum for further licensing and rights information.
