Museums and open access: free art images for beginners

Every image of an old artwork on this site came from a museum or archive that shares it freely. You can sit at home and zoom into an engraving by Dürer until you see the single lines of the burin, download it, print it and pin it above your desk, all legally and for free. This page explains how that works, where to find these collections and how to check that an image really is free to use.

What open access means

Many museums now publish images of works in the public domain with no restrictions. Usually they use a dedication called Creative Commons Zero, or CC0. CC0 means the museum gives up any rights it might have in the image, so anyone can use it for any purpose, including commercial use, without permission or fees.

Two different things are in play here, and it helps to keep them apart.

1. The artwork itself. Copyright in a painting or print runs out after a set time. In the EU, the UK and the US, that is often 70 years after the artist’s death, though the rules vary by country and by the date of the work. After that, the artwork is in the public domain.
2. The photograph of the artwork. The museum takes a photo or scan. Some museums used to claim rights in these photos. In the EU, Article 14 of the 2019 copyright directive says that faithful reproductions of public domain visual art should not get new copyright. Even so, museums set their own policies for their images, so you still need to check.

Works by living artists, or artists who died recently, are not included in open access programs. That is why you will not find a free image of a contemporary witch painting in these collections.

Where to look

Here are the major open access collections I use and recommend. Numbers and policies change all the time, so check each museum’s own site.

Other good sources include the Yale Center for British Art, the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the Finnish National Gallery, Paris Musées and many national libraries, which hold prints, photographs and manuscripts. Wikimedia Commons gathers public domain images from many of these places, with a file page that records the source and licence.

How to check that an image is free

A museum’s “public domain” label refers to the museum’s own policy for its images. Some museums hold back images of works that are legally in the public domain, and copyright law differs between countries. So before you reuse anything, I suggest these steps.

1. Open the object page. Do not trust a search result or a social media post. Go to the museum’s page for that specific object.
2. Look for the label. Look for words such as Public Domain, CC0 or Open Access next to the image, or a download button. If you see “image rights reserved” or no download option, treat the image as not free.
3. Write down the details. Note the title, artist, date, material, size and object number (sometimes called the accession number). The Met’s Melencolia I, for example, is object 43.106.1.
4. Keep the link. Save the address of the object page, so you or anyone else can check it later.
5. Check the content. For this site I also check every image for nudity before I use it, because I want every page to be suitable for any reader. Many old witch and goddess images do not pass, and I describe those in words instead. The only exception is the original 1909 tarot deck, which I show complete because the cards are historical documents.

How I credit images on this site

You will see the same pattern under every image in my galleries: the title, the artist, the date, the material, the size, the museum, the object number and the licence. For example: Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer, 1514, engraving, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object 43.106.1, public domain (CC0).

CC0 does not legally require any credit. I give it anyway, for three reasons. It lets you find the original and see it at full size. It tells you how big the real object is, which changes how you read it. And it is a thank you to the museums that made their collections free.

When an image is a scan of a printed object, such as a tarot card from the 1909 deck, there is no museum object number. In that case I name the file and its source instead, as in my 1909 tarot gallery.

Common mistakes to avoid

A few traps catch almost everyone at the start.

• Trusting a pin or a repost. An image shared on a social site has usually lost its source. Always trace it back to the museum or archive page.
• Assuming old means free. A medieval manuscript is in the public domain, but the library that photographed it may still set terms for its images. Check the page.
• Confusing the original with a new edition. The 1909 tarot drawings are public domain in many countries, but some later recolored or redrawn editions of the same deck are still under copyright.
• Dropping the caption. A cropped detail with no title or museum is hard for anyone to check later. Keep the details with the image, even in a private journal.

Ideas for witches and tarot readers

Open access collections are a gift for a magical practice. You can build a folder of moon pictures to look at before an esbat, print a public domain herbal plate for your Book of Shadows, or compare a dozen historical versions of a tarot card to see how its imagery changed. Old astrological and alchemical prints are especially rich. Just remember the three layers I use on my art pages: what the image meant to its makers, what later writers have read into it, and what it means to you now.

Online is wonderful, but go in person too

Online collections let you zoom in on details you could never see in the gallery, compare works held on different continents and study at any hour. They do not replace standing in front of an object, with its true size, surface and presence. A print you have only seen filling your screen can be smaller than your hand on the wall. Use both.

Start exploring

If you want to try this right now, here is a gentle first exercise. Go to one of the collections above, search for a word that matters to your practice, such as moon, witch, herb or tarot, and turn on the open access filter. Pick one result, open its object page and write down the details from step 3. Then use the questions on my how to look at art page to read it closely.

When you want more, my galleries are ready for you:

• Magic and witches in art
• The moon and the night in art
• The 1909 tarot cards by Pamela Colman Smith