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You Can Now Use 375,000 Images from the Met Museum for Free

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Claude Monet, Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies (1899)

Renowned for its comprehensive collection of work that captures “5,000 years of art spanning all cultures and time periods,” New York City's world famous Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently announced that 375,000 of its pieces in the public domain are now available without restrictions.

As an update to a similar 2014 initiative, the new policy, called Open Access, allows individuals to easily access the images and use them for “any purpose, including commercial and noncommercial use, free of charge and without requiring permission from the Museum.” The available works represent a wide range of movements, styles, and mediums, and span iconic paintings by Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh to centuries-old costumes and armor.

The Met Museum has executed the new policy in collaboration with Creative Commons, a non-profit that aims to promote the legal sharing and distribution of information, ideas, and images through its free and easy-to-use copyright licenses. “Sharing is fundamental to how we promote discovery, innovation, and collaboration in the digital age,” said Ryan Merkley, the CEO of Creative Commons. “The Met has given the world a profound gift in service of its mission: the largest encyclopedic art museum in North America has eliminated the barriers that would otherwise prohibit access to its content, and invited the world to use, remix, and share their public-domain collections widely and without restriction.”

You can access the unrestricted images through the Met's website. As you search its collection, all you need to do is check off the “Public Domain Artworks” option under “Show Only.” You can also browse the selected works by selecting the “Metropolitan Museum of Art” filter on the Creative Commons site.

Scroll down for a sneak peek of the readily available works of art.

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (1877)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Egyptian, Faience amulet in the form of the dwarf god Pataikos (664–30 B.C.)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Utagawa Kunisada, Annual event – the third month (mid-19th century)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Emile Pingat,
Ball gown (ca. 1864)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

El Greco,
View of Toledo (ca. 1598–99)
Oil on canvas; 47 3/4 x 42 3/4 in. (121.3 x 108.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.6)
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/436575

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Gustav Klimt, Mäda Primavesi (1912-13)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

German, Armor (ca. 1520)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Edgar Degas, The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage (1874)

metropolitan museum of art open access public domain creative commons

Emanuel Leutze, George Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Pinterest
h/t: [The Huffington Post]

All images via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Kelly Richman-Abdou

Kelly Richman-Abdou is a Contributing Writer at My Modern Met. An art historian living in Paris, Kelly was born and raised in San Francisco and holds a BA in Art History from the University of San Francisco and an MA in Art and Museum Studies from Georgetown University. When she’s not writing, you can find Kelly wandering around Paris, whether she’s leading a tour (as a guide, she has been interviewed by BBC World News America and France 24) or simply taking a stroll with her husband and two tiny daughters.
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