British Museum Database of Prints

November 23, 2007 9:37 PM

The British Museum Database of Prints is a vast and significant new addition to the cultural wealth available on the internet. The project is ongoing (2000 new additions per week) and has so far concentrated on 2-dimensional artworks (prints and drawings mostly) and there appears to be about 100,000 images (unwatermarked and of a decent size) already available. Search by free form, artist, place, medium etc.

This has been a near silent release and is in something of a beta phase at the moment. There is some more background to the project from Guardian Arts. It's kind of hard trying to make any recommended searches - I've been wandering around the European etchings (32,000 of them) fairly haphazardly for the last couple of days. [eg. Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya....&c]

From here:

"The first release of the database contains the entries for the Museum’s collection of two-dimensional works.

These are almost entirely works on paper (drawings, paintings or prints) but include other categories of objects such as icons, rubbings, papercuts, mummy-portraits, wall paintings, watch papers, scrolls and the Vindolanda tablets from Roman Britain.

The main categories of available material are:

The complete collection of drawings, scrolls, paintings and prints from the Middle East, central Asia, south Asia, south-east Asia, China, Japan and Korea and other countries of the Far East.

This includes all the single-sheet prints from Japan, and summary entries for Japanese illustrated books. There are also paintings, drawings, prints and other forms of two-dimensional art from Africa, the Pacific and the Americas.

The complete collections of drawings and watercolours from Europe and associated cultures in the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand."

posted by peacay (7 comments total)

omg you pirate you! So much treasure. arrrr.
posted by nickyskye at 9:44 PM on November 23, 2007

Awesome and useful post. I deal in a lot of 18 & 19 century prints so this is a very helpful research tool and will save lots of time . Thanks Peacay!
posted by Rancid Badger at 9:44 PM on November 23, 2007

Double, but a good one
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 9:45 PM on November 23, 2007

Heh....my first doubler. P'raps I was a bit tooo smart linking straight to the advanced search page.
[now I'll go back into its depths looking for a suitable image of a sword on which to fall.]
posted by peacay at 9:49 PM on November 23, 2007

Awesome.
posted by glycolized at 10:16 PM on November 23, 2007

Lovely. I do wish they had the high res versions as well, but still quite nice.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:21 PM on November 23, 2007

I am finding the search function a bit odd, but there is amazing gold here once you find it.
posted by LarryC at 11:12 PM on November 23, 2007