Web Gallery of Art
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual art gallery website. It displays historic European visual art, mainly from the Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance periods, available for educational and personal use.
Overview
The website contains reproductions of over 48,600 works and includes accompanying text on the artworks and artists, accessible through a searchable database. The site is a leading example of an independently established collection of high-quality historically important pictures.The viewer can select the size of the image; associated music is also included to accompany viewing, and posters of displayed artworks are available. The facility was created by Emil Kren and Daniel Marx.
Copyrights
Most of the images in the gallery are of works that are out of copyright, as they were all produced before 1900 and all named artists in the collection were born well before 1900. However, copyright for the reproductions displayed on the website may apply within some legal systems. The WGA itself gives the following copyright statement:
The Web Gallery of Art is copyrighted as a database. Images and documents downloaded from this database can only be used for educational and personal purposes. Distribution of the images in any form is prohibited without the authorization of their legal owner.
Very little information is given on the pages presenting the images, as to who the legal owner of each might be. In the United States, photo reproductions of public domain two-dimensional art are also in the public domain, as affirmed by the decision in the case of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., but this is not the case for photo reproductions of three-dimensional art such as sculptures. Copyrights of the sculpture images therefore remain unclear. Copyrights of the text on the website are also unclear; most of the reproductions in the gallery are displayed as catalog items unaccompanied by any explanatory text, but short explanatory notes for artist biographies or important artworks do exist and are unreferenced.
Database
Their database with over 48,600 artworks created by over 4,000 artists is free to download and they have published statistics over their virtual collection that are on their statistics webpage. Artworks installed in churches and from private collections are represented as well as museums. What follows is a list of institutions with more than 50 works represented on their website, based on their downloadable database.| Source Institution | Source Location | # Titles |
| assorted private collections | worldwide | 2184 |
| Accademia Carrara | Bergamo | 54 |
| Akademie der bildenden Künste | Vienna | 202 |
| Alte Pinakothek | Munich | 329 |
| Art Institute | Chicago | 107 |
| Ashmolean Museum | Oxford | 84 |
| Baptistry | Florence | 72 |
| Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo | Venice | 68 |
| Basilica di San Marco | Venice | 72 |
| Basilica di San Pietro | Vatican | 61 |
| Bibliothèque Nationale | Paris | 172 |
| British Museum | London | 278 |
| Cappella Scrovegni | Padua | 125 |
| Cappella Sistina | Vatican | 329 |
| Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella | Florence | 54 |
| Cathedral of St Bavo | Ghent | 77 |
| Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo | Orvieto | 57 |
| Duomo | Prato | 54 |
| Frans Hals Museum | Haarlem | 72 |
| Galleria Borghese | Rome | 174 |
| Galleria degli Uffizi | Florence | 821 |
| Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica | Rome | 130 |
| Galleria Palatina | Florence | 275 |
| Gallerie dell'Accademia | Venice | 394 |
| Gemäldegalerie | Dresden | 249 |
| Germanisches Nationalmuseum | Nuremberg | 58 |
| Graphische Sammlung Albertina | Vienna | 116 |
| Groeningemuseum | Bruges | 137 |
| Hungarian National Gallery | Budapest | 71 |
| Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten | Antwerp | 141 |
| Koninklijke Bibliotheek | The Hague | 59 |
| Kunsthalle | Hamburg | 75 |
| Kunsthistorisches Museum | Vienna | 456 |
| Liechtenstein Museum | Vienna | 229 |
| Lindenau-Museum | Altenburg | 68 |
| Lower Church, San Francesco | Assisi | 61 |
| Mauritshuis | The Hague | 91 |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York | 794 |
| Musée Condé | Chantilly | 66 |
| Musée d'Orsay | Paris | 430 |
| Musée du Louvre | Paris | 1715 |
| Musée d'Unterlinden | Colmar | 58 |
| Musée Rodin | Paris | 60 |
| Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts | Brussels | 187 |
| Museo Correr | Venice | 53 |
| Museo del Prado | Madrid | 742 |
| Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico | Venice | 66 |
| Museo dell'Opera del Duomo | Florence | 105 |
| Museo dell'Opera del Duomo | Siena | 94 |
| Museo di San Marco | Florence | 75 |
| Museo Diocesano | Cortona | 69 |
| Museo Nazionale del Bargello | Florence | 163 |
| Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte | Naples | 68 |
| Museo Poldi Pezzoli | Milan | 70 |
| Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza | Madrid | 256 |
| Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen | Rotterdam | 77 |
| Museum Mayer van den Bergh | Antwerp | 62 |
| Museum of Art | Philadelphia | 54 |
| Museum of Fine Arts | Boston | 177 |
| Museum voor Schone Kunsten | Ghent | 78 |
| Národní Galerie | Prague | 91 |
| National Gallery of Art | Washington | 517 |
| National Gallery of Scotland | Edinburgh | 84 |
| National Gallery | London | 545 |
| Nationalgalerie | Berlin | 99 |
| Neue Pinakothek | Munich | 100 |
| Palazzo Ducale | Venice | 132 |
| Palazzo Vecchio | Florence | 58 |
| Pinacoteca di Brera | Milan | 225 |
| Pinacoteca Nazionale | Siena | 73 |
| Pinacoteca | Vatican | 105 |
| Pushkin Museum | Moscow | 68 |
| Residenzgalerie | Salzburg | 77 |
| Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller | Otterlo | 69 |
| Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh | Amsterdam | 128 |
| Rijksmuseum | Amsterdam | 674 |
| Rockox House | Antwerp | 58 |
| Royal Collection | Windsor | 167 |
| Royal Library | Windsor | 61 |
| San Francesco | Arezzo | 135 |
| Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari | Venice | 70 |
| Scuola Grande di San Rocco | Venice | 126 |
| Staatliche Museen | Berlin | 795 |
| Staatliche Museen | Kassel | 98 |
| Städelsches Kunstinstitut | Frankfurt | 113 |
| Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici | Vatican | 61 |
| Szépmûvészeti Múzeum | Budapest | 533 |
| Tate Gallery | London | 57 |
| The Hermitage | St. Petersburg | 1106 |
| Upper Church, San Francesco | Assisi | 84 |
| Victoria and Albert Museum | London | 82 |
| Wallace Collection | London | 168 |
| Wallraf–Richartz Museum | Cologne | 153 |