The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use


Update: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art has put online 492,000 high-res­o­lu­tion images of artis­tic works. Even bet­ter, the muse­um has placed the vast major­i­ty of these images into the pub­lic domain, mean­ing they can be down­loaded direct­ly from the museum’s web­site for non-com­mer­cial use. When you browse the Met col­lec­tion and find an image that you fan­cy, just look at the low­er left-hand side of the image. If you see an “OA” icon and the words “pub­lic domain” (as shown in the exam­ple below), you’re free to use the image, pro­vid­ed that you abide by the Met’s terms.

In mak­ing this col­lec­tion avail­able online, the Met joined oth­er world-class muse­ums in putting large troves of dig­i­tal art online. Wit­ness the 88,000 images from the Get­ty in L.A., the 125,000 Dutch mas­ter­pieces from the Rijksmu­se­umthe 50,000 artis­tic images from the Nation­al Gallery, and the 1.9 mil­lion images from the British Muse­um.

It takes a lit­tle patience. But once you start surf­ing through the Met’s dig­i­tal col­lec­tions, you can find and down­load images of some won­der­ful mas­ter­pieces. We’ve embed­ded a few of our favorite picks. At the top, you will find the 1874 paint­ing “Boat­ing,” by Édouard Manet. In the mid­dle, Rem­brandt’s “Self-Por­trait” from 1660. At the bot­tom, a 1907 pho­to­graph by Alfred Stieglitz called “The Steer­age.” And that’s just start­ing to scratch the sur­face.

Hap­py rum­mag­ing. And, when you have some free time on your hands, you should also check out anoth­er open ini­tia­tive from the Met. The muse­um has also put 500+ free art books online. You can learn about them here.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014. We have updat­ed it to reflect some of the changes made in the Met col­lec­tion over the past decade.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The British Muse­um Puts 1.9 Mil­lion Works of Art Online

The Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam Has Dig­i­tized 818,000 Works of Art, Includ­ing Famous Works by Rem­brandt and Ver­meer

Down­load 50,000 Works of Art from the Nation­al Gallery, Includ­ing Mas­ter­pieces by Van Gogh, Gau­guin, Rem­brandt & More

Down­load 50,000 Art Books & Cat­a­logs from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art’s Dig­i­tal Col­lec­tions


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Comments (4)
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  • hp says:

    > mean­ing they can be down­loaded direct­ly from the museum’s web­site for non-com­mer­cial use

    Com­mer­cial use is also allowed. Accord­ing to the Met:
    “Open Access data and pub­lic domain images are avail­able for unre­strict­ed com­mer­cial and non­com­mer­cial use with­out per­mis­sion or fee.”

  • Jayshree Misra says:

    Thank you for giv­ing access to some great works of art. It’s a great pub­lic ser­vice.

    I would love to hang up a cou­ple in my study.
    Is there a link avail­able from the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art web­site?

    Regards
    Jayshree

  • Laurie A says:

    If you go to met­mu­se­um dot org there is a link to Open Access

  • Jam Gai says:

    The author is a bit con­fused about the term “pub­lic domain”. No pub­lic domain work may be restrict­ed from use, either com­mer­cial or oth­er­wise.

    Tthe Pub­lic Domain Review has a pret­ty good explain­er:

    publicdomainreview.org/what-is-the-public-domain/

    In short:

    Cre­ative works that are not pro­tect­ed by copy­right are said to be in the “pub­lic domain”, a vast com­mons of mate­r­i­al that every­one is free to enjoy, share, and build upon with­out restric­tion.

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