The Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, commonly abbreviated INHA, is a French research institute, created and governed by Decree No. 2001-621, and situated in Paris. The Institute develops scientific activity and contributes to international cooperation in most fields of art history and heritage by exercising research, training and knowledge-diffusion.
INHA's art history library is in the former reading room of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Salle Labrouste, which is located at 58 rue de Richelieu in the Richelieu Quadrilateral Area of what is now the Site Richelieu of the BnF. It is the responsibility of the Department of the Library and Documentation. The core of the library's collections was derived from the Art and Archeology Library founded by Jacques Doucet in 1897 and donated in 1917 to the University of Paris. Doucet's library was transferred in 1992 to the Site Richelieu's Salle Ovale and, after coming under the management of INHA in 2003, was eventually moved to the nearby Salle Labrouste, where it opened on 15 December 2016. Further acquisitions have expanded the collections of INHA's library to include approximately 1,800 manuscripts, 20,000 rare books, 30,000 prints and drawings, more than 45,00 autograph letters by artists and art critics, 96,000 cartons of exposition invitations, and 750,000 photographs.
Activities
The INHA's mission is to promote international art historical research in all fields of the history of art. It pilots many programs by gathering together university researchers and curators. It organises study days, symposiums, conferences and meeting-debates and develops different resources, documentary bases and research programs in art history. Each year, the INHA invites about sixty art historians, among them experienced researchers, academics, curators, art critics and doctoral students. Twice a year, the INHA publishes a scientific review on art history entitled Perspective. Many documentary bases are to be found on the INHA's website. The INHA provides access to external and internal online databases like which allows several search modes in the different research fields of the INHA: , , expert search and search by links, in particular in the RETIF ''] which gives the italian paintings held in French public collections.
