Guides: History of Art & Architecture: Images

Best Bets for Finding Images

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
The ARTstor Digital Library is a nonprofit resource that provides over 1.5 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research.

Center for Creative Photography
The Center for Creative Photography is an archive and research center located on the University of Arizona campus. Including the archives of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Garry Winogrand, Harry Callahan, and other great 20th-century photographers--over fifty archives in all.
Getty Open Content Images
Free use of over 10,000 images in the Getty Open Content Program, including paintings, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, artists' sketchbooks, rare prints, and architectural drawings of cultural landmarks. No permission is required. Check individual image notes to make sure it is part of the "Open Content Program".
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is an online platform through which the public can access high-resolution images of artworks housed in partner museums.
Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Collection Online
Almost 400,000 images from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, many of which are images of public domain artworks available for free, non-commercial re-use under the (Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC)) program.
National Gallery of Art: NGA Images
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 22,000 open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
NYPL Digital Collection includes over 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library. Freely accessible.
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NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 600,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
Contains catalog records and digital images representing a cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and other units of the Library of Congress.
The U.S. National Archives (Flickr)
The National Archives has joined Flickr to share images of National Archives archival photographs and documents with researchers and the public.
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All of the U.S. National Archives' images that are part of The Flickr Commons are marked "no known copyright restrictions." If you do reproduce one of our images, we would appreciate your crediting the National Archives and Records Administration as the original source.

How to Cite Images

While each professor may have a different preference for what information you will need for an image citation, you can use this as a guide.

Artist name, Title of Work, Date created.
Material or medium, Dimensions.
Location (Repository, Museum, or Owner, etc.)

If you do not know any of these items, provide what you do know and put “unknown” for the rest.

Sometimes, it is sufficient to give just a credit line below the image, rather than a full footnote or endnote. Generally, Turabian style does not require a bibliographic citation for an image.

Try these helpful guides from other schools:

Citing an Image (Vanderbilt)
Citing Images (U. of Cincinnati)
Citing Images (U. of Dayton)
Citing a Work of Art (R&D Online)
Tip sheet with example (PDF from chicagomanualofstyle.org)

John Everett Millais. Ophelia, 1852. Oil on canvas. Tate Britain, London.
762 x 1118 mm. ARTstor.

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