The Met Museum in New York recently published over 375,000 images under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. In other words, this is 375,000 images to use as you like, free of charge and without any restrictions.
There are photos of artworks and different historical items in the collection. But what will make photographers especially happy is a vast number of photographs under CC0 license. They were taken in various techniques, depicting all sorts of events, people, and objects. And they are all recorded in different periods of photographic history.
On February 7, 2017, The Metropolitan Museum of Art implemented a new policy known as Open Access. This policy makes images of artworks in the public domain “widely and freely available for unrestricted use, and at no cost, in accordance with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation.”
The collection under CC0 license adds to the already digitalized collection of 200,000 public-domain artworks. This latest addition is a part of the Met Museum’s Open Access policy, available for everyone as a part of the digital library. You can easily search the collection using filters, and you will definitely find plenty of material for any purpose.
Under each photo, there are information about the artwork, including title, maker, date, culture, medium, and dimensions. And here are some of the photos from the gallery:
Unknown Artist [12 Year Old Mother, Malay, Batavia], 1860s–70s, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Guillaume-Benjamin-Armand Duchenne de Boulogne [Icono-photographique. Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine. Fig. 65, 1854–56], printed 1862, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Unknown Artist, [The Countess Canning, Simla], 1861, Albumen silver print
Suzuki Shin’ichi [Newsman], 1870s, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Lewis Carroll [St. George and the Dragon], June 26, 1875, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Wilson Alwyn Bentley [Snow Crystal], 1890s–1920s, Gelatin silver print
George Collins Cox [Frances and Ethel de Forest, daughters of Robert de Forest], ca. 1890, Albumen silver print
No matter if you are an art teacher, a writer, a photographer or just want to browse through the history of art in digital form – you can benefit from this gallery. I’m glad the Met Museum has decided to share their collection with everyone. It’s great that even us in the other part of the world can take a peek at this incredibly rich collection of art.
[via NBC News]
