Research Guides: HIST 333: History and Fiction (HC): Visual Sources

Images as Sources

1930s advertisement from Shanghai (Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Oxford Art Online
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Oxford Art Online is an art reference library that searches Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. This resource contains images, biographies, subject entries, and thematic timelines (antiquity to present).

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Extremely rich site for understanding the art of a particular region and time. Use the Time Period and Geographic menus to see key Works of Art, Related Exhibitions, and, under Related Content, Thematic Essays.

ARTstor
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A digital library that provides access to thousands of digital images derived from a variety of museum, library and archival collections. Images support a variety of disciplines including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design. Coverage varies.

Banque d'images (Bibliothèque nationale)
Many images from France's Bibliothèque nationale collections are searchable here.
British Museum Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Searchable database of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts with descriptions of individual images.
Digital Image Collections
New York Public Library has digitized many of its notable art and photography collections to aid researchers.
Image Sources (Princeton University)
See sources for images including libraries, museums and organizations.
Photos, Prints and Drawings from the Digital Collections at the Library of Congress
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of photographs, prints and drawings relating to history in the U. S. and around the world. To see all digital collections at the Library of Congress (including texts), use this link.
Smithsonian Collections Search
Search over 8.59 million catalog records of museum objects, and library & archives materials. More than 963,000 of these records contain online images, video and sound files, electronic journals and other online resources.
Wellcome Images
The Wellcome Library in London makes more than 40,000 images searchable online relating to medicine and social history. Note that the Advanced Search includes a year range option.