Image Databases
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowNOTICE: ARTstor is moving to the JSTOR platform and the old ARTstor platform will be unavailable as of August 1, 2024. If you have created image groups, you must copy them over to JSTOR before then. To begin using the new platform, click here.
Coverage: varies. A repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images and related data, with unique tools to actively use those images for teaching, learning and research.
Terms of use - Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new windowReplaces the Index of Christian Art
The Index records works of art produced without geographical limitations from early apostolic times up to A.D. 1550. The Internet database presently contains nearly 80,000 work of art records which are accompanied by over one-hundred thousand images in color and black and white. Many of these images have never before been digitized and are published here for the first time.
Terms of use
- MDID: Colgate's Digital IMage DatabaseColgate's Visual Resources department houses thousands of images pertaining to Art & Art History and Classics departments.
- Chicago History Museum: Costume and Textile CollectionWith over 50,000 costumes and textile artifacts from the mid-18th century to the present, the Chicago History Museum Costume Collection is the second largest in the world and one of the nation’s most complete repositories.
- Wonders: images of the ancient worldOver 1,700 images of the civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other ancient Mediterranean cultures as conceived and depicted by artists and travelers from the 18th to the early 20th century, as represented in book and periodical illustrations, engravings, lithographs and photographs. A wide range of subjects includes arms and armor, architecture, furniture, pottery, mythology, religion, theater and the Seven Wonders of the World
- ArtsyArtsy is an online platform for discovering, learning about, and collecting art. Our growing collection comprises 100,000+ artworks by 18,000+ artists. Artsy provides one of the largest collections of contemporary art available online.
MLA citations
For Bibliography or Works Cited page –
- Image itself (Painting, sculpture, photograph)
Artist last name, Artist first name. Title of image. Date of composition. Medium. Location of institution that houses image.
Picasso, Pablo. Gertrude Stein. 1905-6. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
* If date of composition is unknown, put “n.d.”
- Untitled image
* If image is untitled, write "Untitled" and give a brief, descriptive title for it parenthetically.
Artist last name, Artist first name. Untitled (brief, descriptive title). Date of composition. Medium. Location of institution that houses image.
Muybridge, Eadweard. Untitled (photograph of horse running). 1887. National Gallery, London.
- Image referenced in text
Artist’s last name, first name. Title of artwork. Year. Name of institution/private collection housing artwork. Title of print source. Author/editor’s first name last name. Publication city: Publisher, year. Page/plate number. Print.
Kahlo, Frida. The Two Fridas. 1939. Museo de Art Moderno, Mexico City. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Ed. Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006. 774.
- Image downloaded from a website
Artist’s last name, Artist first name. Title of artwork. Year. Medium. Location of institution that houses image. Title of database or website. Publisher/sponsor of database or website. Web. Date of access. <URL (optional)>
Cloix, Emmanuel. BROUSSAI 2 visu. 2007. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 1 June 2011. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BROUSSAI_2_visu.jpg> .
- Image from database
Artist last name, Artist first name. Title. Date of composition. Medium. Location of instiution that houses image. Database. Date you accessed image. <url of image>. Digital image.
Johns, Jasper. Flag on Orange Field. 1957. Oil on canvas. Erich Lessing Archives, New York. ARTstor. 12 April 2013. <http://www.artstor.org>. Digital image.
Figures and In-text citation
If you are using images as figures in your paper, in-text citations are different than how you would treat a book.
- All visuals should be labeled "Figure" or "Fig." followed by an Arabic number. (ex. "Figure 3" or "Fig. 9")
- Underneath each image in your paper, there should be a "Figure" label and a corresponding number, followed by citation information. Since this information is provided below your image, you do not need to provide this information on your Works Cited page. For example -
Fig. 3. Picasso, Pablo. Gertrude Stein. 1905-6. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. - For in-text citation, provide only the Figure label and the corresponding numeral. For example -
Use of color went from bright pastels to dark earth tones during this period (see fig. 4).