Web Gallery of Art

The Web Gallery of Art (WGA) 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.[1]

Overview

The website contains reproductions of over 48,600 works[2] 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. [3]

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
Number of artworks per period. Data taken from the Web Gallery of Art database downloaded in March 2014

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.[4] 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.

Sortable table
Source Institution Source Location # Titles
assorted private collectionsworldwide2184
Accademia CarraraBergamo54
Akademie der bildenden KünsteVienna202
Alte PinakothekMunich329
Art InstituteChicago107
Ashmolean MuseumOxford84
BaptistryFlorence72
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e PaoloVenice68
Basilica di San MarcoVenice72
Basilica di San PietroVatican61
Bibliothèque NationaleParis172
British MuseumLondon278
Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel)Padua125
Cappella SistinaVatican329
Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria NovellaFlorence54
Cathedral of St BavoGhent77
Chapel of San Brizio, DuomoOrvieto57
DuomoPrato54
Frans Hals MuseumHaarlem72
Galleria BorgheseRome174
Galleria degli UffiziFlorence821
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte AnticaRome130
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti)Florence275
Gallerie dell'AccademiaVenice394
GemäldegalerieDresden249
Germanisches NationalmuseumNuremberg58
Graphische Sammlung AlbertinaVienna116
GroeningemuseumBruges137
Hungarian National GalleryBudapest71
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone KunstenAntwerp141
Koninklijke BibliotheekThe Hague59
KunsthalleHamburg75
Kunsthistorisches MuseumVienna456
Liechtenstein MuseumVienna229
Lindenau-MuseumAltenburg68
Lower Church, San FrancescoAssisi61
MauritshuisThe Hague91
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York794
Musée CondéChantilly66
Musée d'OrsayParis430
Musée du LouvreParis1715
Musée d'UnterlindenColmar58
Musée RodinParis60
Musées Royaux des Beaux-ArtsBrussels187
Museo CorrerVenice53
Museo del PradoMadrid742
Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' RezzonicoVenice66
Museo dell'Opera del DuomoFlorence105
Museo dell'Opera del DuomoSiena94
Museo di San MarcoFlorence75
Museo DiocesanoCortona69
Museo Nazionale del BargelloFlorence163
Museo Nazionale di CapodimonteNaples68
Museo Poldi PezzoliMilan70
Museo Thyssen-BornemiszaMadrid256
Museum Boijmans Van BeuningenRotterdam77
Museum Mayer van den BerghAntwerp62
Museum of ArtPhiladelphia54
Museum of Fine ArtsBoston177
Museum voor Schone KunstenGhent78
Národní GaleriePrague91
National Gallery of ArtWashington517
National Gallery of ScotlandEdinburgh84
National GalleryLondon545
NationalgalerieBerlin99
Neue PinakothekMunich100
Palazzo DucaleVenice132
Palazzo VecchioFlorence58
Pinacoteca di BreraMilan225
Pinacoteca NazionaleSiena73
PinacotecaVatican105
Pushkin MuseumMoscow68
ResidenzgalerieSalzburg77
Rijksmuseum Kröller-MüllerOtterlo69
Rijksmuseum Vincent van GoghAmsterdam128
RijksmuseumAmsterdam674
Rockox HouseAntwerp58
Royal CollectionWindsor167
Royal LibraryWindsor61
San FrancescoArezzo135
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei FrariVenice70
Scuola Grande di San RoccoVenice126
Staatliche MuseenBerlin795
Staatliche MuseenKassel98
Städelsches KunstinstitutFrankfurt113
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi PontificiVatican61
Szépmûvészeti MúzeumBudapest533
Tate GalleryLondon57
The HermitageSt. Petersburg1106
Upper Church, San FrancescoAssisi84
Victoria and Albert MuseumLondon82
Wallace CollectionLondon168
Wallraf–Richartz MuseumCologne153

See also

References
  1. "Web Gallery of Art". The University of Texas, USA. Retrieved May 5, 2012.
  2. "Web Gallery of Art". Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  3. "Copyright issues related to entirety of the database and to the particular reproductions displayed on the website". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved 2018-11-25.
  4. According to their statistics page in January 2013, all artworks are dated between 1001 and 1900
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