You can now freely download almost 400,000 images from NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art

Daniel Esparza - published on 02/14/17

All public-domain digital images of art in the Met’s collection are now available online free, to use as you please

Art lovers, rejoice! New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced early this month that their open-access policy now allows unrestricted use of any public-domain image of artworks in their collection, using the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license designation. We’re talking more than 375,000 images here.

According to the New York Times, Museum Director Thomas P. Campbell explained that “increasing access to the collection has been a priority for over a decade… Twenty years ago, as a scholar, we had to negotiate access for even catalogue cards.” The nearly 400,000 images available, Mr. Campbell affirmed, represent the “main body” of the museum’s collection. Taking into account the Met is home to around 1.5 million works, one might say this is but a sample, but the digitalizing project is still active. The goal is to spread the museum’s online reach as much as possible, including collaborations with Creative Commons, Wikipedia and Pinterest.

You can start making your own digital, personal Met Museum collection by clicking here.

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