Metropolitan Museum of Art

U.S.A. / up to 146,238 ~ images available
Content

This vast and diverse collection consists of prints, drawings, paintings and book illustrations mainly from the 15th-19th century with a selection of works from the 20th century.

Geography spans most of the globe – from London, Rome, Paris and Venice to Spain, India, Iran and Japan.

Here you can stumble upon portraits of women and men, nudes, decorative designs, satire drawings, interiors, Christian imagery and saints, diverse objects such as hats, animals – horses, dogs and birds, ornaments, historical figures, architecture and buildings, cartouches, scenes from Greek mythology, military themes, musical instruments and many more.

Engraving and etching techniques are most prevalent with significant use of polychrome woodblock prints, lithographs and oil paintings as well.

Authors include such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Honoré Daumier, Thomas Rowlandson, José Guadalupe Posada, Rembrandt, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Edgar Degas, Hendrick Goltzius, Utagawa Hiroshige, Goya, Utagawa Kunisada, William Blake, Egon Schiele and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec among others.

How to find images?

1. Visit https://www.metmuseum.org/.
2. Go to ‘Art’ and then to ‘The Met Collection’
3. Activate search field and press ‘Enter’
4. Click ‘Artworks with Image’

Now you can see all collection items.
Direct link
Around 406,000 images

Themes
Themes

If you wish us to curate this collection for creators, make it searchable by keywords and easy to use, please consider supporting our platform.

Authors
Authors

If you wish us to curate this collection for creators, make it searchable by keywords and easy to use, please consider supporting our platform.

Is the digital scan under an open licence?

Not all digital scans in this collection are under an open licence. Open licence is applied only to those digital scans where the original work is believed to be in the public domain in the U.S. Where digital scan is under an open licence, it is available to be downloaded in high resolution.

How to find them?

Use a filter:
1. Go to the main page with all collection items (see section ‘How to find images?’)
2. Make sure Open Access is selected

OR

Check images individually:

1. Go to the image page
2. See if you can find ‘Open Access’ icon

More information by the provider:
Open Access
FAQ

Is the original work in the public domain?

Not all original works in this collection, which are under an open licence and available to download in high resolution, are in the public domain in the European countries. 

This is because the Metropolitan Museum of Art is in the U.S. and guided by the copyright law of the U.S. It applies open licence to digital scans where original works are believed to be in the public domain in the U.S

How to find images which you can reuse in most of the European countries?

Focus on older content:

1. In the image search results page click on filter Date / Era
2. Select any options from 500 to 1900 (you can also select one date range at a time, this excludes around 1911 images)
Search results you get are now more likely to be in the public domain in most of the European countries (where images are published before 1949).

Now, after you limited results, check each image individually:

1. Go to the image page
2. Identify all the authors and contributors
3. Find the death date of the last living author
If the last living author has passed away more than 70 years ago, most likely, his/her works are in the public domain in most of the European countries. 

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However, if you intend to use images for commercial purposes you might want to do additional checks to assess any risk. 

Please note, it is always your personal responsibility to make sure the original work is out of copyright in all countries where you distribute your new creative works. The supplier of the digital scan cannot guarantee this. 

How to continue searching?

Go to the main page with all collection items (see section ‘How to find images?’). Here you can use ‘Advanced Search’, or filter by: 

  • object type/material
  • geographic location
  • date/era 
  • department
How to view search results?

Go to the main page with all collection items (see section ‘How to find images?’).

You can sort images in various ways. View results as thumbnails or list.

How to continue browsing?

How to view an image?

Go to the image page. Here you can share image, expand it and zoom in/out.

How to view image metadata?

Go to the image page. Scroll down to see object details: 

  • name
  • date
  • geography
  • medium
  • classification
  • credit line
  • provenance
  • references
  • time period
  • department
  • object type/material
  • geographic location
  • related objects
How to download?

1. Go to the image page.
2.
Click on ‘Download’ button.

How to attribute?

Artist name, Title, Date. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Open licence (e.g. CC0 ) + a link

Share your new creative works using hashtags #RevivoStories#TheMet #MetMuseum @MetMuseum!


Attribution guidelines are based on goodwill. They are not legally binding, but they are a secret way how to:
– Say ‘thank you’ to the most friendly for creators museums, archives and libraries.
– Encourage the release of new open collections for creativity.
– Inform and equip your fellow creators with new powers.

So far we added 3 collections, currently work on 5 new collections from 35 in total (constantly growing). Contribute to help us grow from 32, 000 to 1,000,000 images faster!