LibGuides: Art: Locate Artworks

Museum Collections and Holdings

Online

Many museums host collections online and have a searchable repository of images. For specific works or museums, see the museum web page.

Art Institute of Chicago
Thousands of artworks in the museum's wide-ranging collection... as well as books writings, reference materials, and other resources.
British Museum
There are currently more than 2,000,000 records available, representing more than 3,500,000 objects. Many records have one or more images.
The Getty Museum
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
More than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain works in the Museum's collection may be downloaded directly from the Museum's website for non-commercial use—including in scholarly publications in any media—without permission from the Museum and without a fee.

Print

Catalogue raisonné: A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive list of all known artworks by an artist. If one is available for your artist this is the best way to find a location of a work.

Museum holdings catalogs: If you know which museum holds a particular artwork, museum holdings catalogs are another good place to check. Like a catalogue raisonné, a museum holdings catalog will generally include a picture of the art work, critical commentary and a bibliography Find permanent holdings catalogs in the library catalog by searching for [name of museum] catalogs

Provenance Research

About Provenance Research and Collecting (Getty)
General information about Provenance and links to resources.

Provenance research concerns the historical record of ownership of an object or artwork. It can be useful for tracing the origin of a work, determining a work’s authenticity and assigning a work to a particular artist. Provenance database information may also be used to explore patterns and trends in art collecting, social and political alliance, consumer behavior and market conditions.

Using the Databases (Getty)
Contains research examples, a guide on how to search the databases and FAQ section.
Archaeology: Cultural Property, Heritage, and Provenance Research (BU)
Links to research guides and documents from organizations, government, journals, books and newspapers containing provenance and cultural property information.

Auction Records

artnet
Over 12 million art auction records dating back to 1985.