duPont Library: Theatre 361: Costume Design: Find Images

Images

AP Images
Contains images and other material to supplement papers, presentations and projects: ·Photos - There are more than 6.1 million photographs from 1825 to today (up to the minute), with about 3,000 new photos added every day.
Artcyclopedia
An index that points the viewer to collections of artist's work found in museums and other web-site from around the world.
ARTstor
Collection of hundreds of thousands of digital images and related data. Also includes special tools to actively use images.
Bridgeman Art Library
Major database for European and American art. Try clicking on the magnifying glass with the plus sign in it, to the right of the search box, for Advanced Search options.
Flickr
This online photo community allows amateur and professional photographers to upload their photos and set usage rights. Many photos are available under Creative Commons licenses. Flickr also uses a social tagging system for photo categorization, which can make photos easier to find using common words and phrasing.
Getty Images
A commercial web-site with many contemporary and photography images. Fees will occur for usage.
Google Art Project
Over 17 museums are represented in Google's project and more to come in the future. Individuals may zoom in and view gallery rooms and save images to albums.
Historical and Public Figures: A General Portrait File to the 1920s
"Over 30,00 portraits of a wide-range of public figures, including political, religious, cultural, literary and artistic personalities, with an emphasis on the 16th through the 19th-centuries. Includes some original prints, but is principally printed pictures."
The Kyoto Costume Institute-- Digital Archives
Metropolitan Museum of Art
"The Met" is the largest art museum in the United States. For costume and set design, try clicking on "Art," and then choose either "Collection" or "Timeline of Art History."
Museum of London
The Museum of London covers from prehistoric times to the present day. Try clicking on "Collections."
New York Public Library Photograph Archive
American photographs from the 1860s-1920s in the New York Public Library.
NYPL Digital Picture Collection Online
This collection includes tens of thousands of images amassed by thr New York Public Library, and includes the Historical Postcards of New York City. Related to this, see also the vast NYPL Digital Gallery, which boasts over 700,000 images.
Scholars Resource
Thousands of images are listed from various vendors under the Schloars Resource web-site. Brief information is provided and Sewanee clients can download selected images.
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria & Albert in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. To search, try clicking on "Collections," and then scroll down to choose "Search the Collections."
Wikimedia Commons
Provides many copyright free images on countless subjects (but be sure to check the usage rights if you want to use an image).
World Images
The internationally recognized WorldImages database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. It has just been selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collection of Internet materials. It contains approximately 80,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery.

Materials Contemporary to Your Design

One excellent place to look for images of clothing in daily life from a time period in the past 150 years or so are advertisements, illustrations, and similar materials in magazines and newspapers of the period. Listed below are just a few examples of where you might look.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1740-1940
Location: North America
Contains digitized images of the pages of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Search interface: ProQuest.

Primary Historical Sources
All of the primary source collections held by the duPont Library. Try using Control+F (on a PC) or Command+F (on a Mac) to search for your topic.

Digital Images Collections Guide

Scott Spicer, a librarian at the University of Minnesota, maintains the Digital Image Collections Guide, which is a carefully assembled guide to nearly 1000 image collections online. There's a list of links just dealing with Costume Design!

Jessie Ball duPont Library

Theatre 361: Costume Design

Images

Materials Contemporary to Your Design

Digital Images Collections Guide