Finding Images: Art and History

A smorgasbord of photos, images, works of art, artifacts, audio recordings and books from museums and archives throughout Europe. Not all the works of art and images featured are in the public domain, so double-check the copyright information before using.

Flickr Commons is chock-full of images in the public domain. These images are made available by libraries, museums and archives around the world, such as the Internet Archive, the British Library, the UBC Digitization Centre and the Smithsonian Institute.

Features digital images of artifacts from the French Revolution, including maps, letters, coins and paintings. Images found in this site are no longer protected by intellectual property rights and can be used for non-commercial purposes. See the “About” page for details.

Digital images from the Paul Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute are made available to the public free of charge. Information on how to properly attribute images can be found on the homepage. While scholars are free to use open-content images in their publications, Getty appreciates receiving a gratis copy of the publication.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art makes available digital images from its collection. Look for images marked OASC (Open Access for Scholarly Content). These works are in the public domain and can be used for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes. Images cannot be modified, and proper credit should be given to the museum. For detailed information on using Met’s OASC images, visit the Terms and Conditions/Terms of Use page.

The Open Collections of OpenGLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) contain digital images of works of art, maps, manuscripts, illustrations and objects. Many images found in the site are in the public domain or have Creative Commons licenses. Double-check the licensing information before using images.