Web Gallery of Art

Last updated
Web Gallery of Art
Company typeVirtual museum/Online art database
Founded1996;29 years ago (1996)
FounderEmil Kren and Daniel Marx
HeadquartersN.A.
Area served
Worldwide
ServicesVirtual art gallery
Website www.wga.hu OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

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] . In February 2025, the website was inaccessible for a few days but everything became normal again in March.

Contents

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 WGA - number of artworks per period.jpg
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 InstitutionSource Location# Titles
assorted private collections worldwide2184
Accademia Carrara Bergamo54
Akademie der bildenden Künste Vienna202
Alte Pinakothek Munich329
Art Institute Chicago107
Ashmolean Museum Oxford84
Baptistry Florence72
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo Venice68
Basilica di San Marco Venice72
Basilica di San Pietro Vatican61
Bibliothèque Nationale Paris172
British Museum London278
Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel)Padua125
Cappella Sistina Vatican329
Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella Florence54
Cathedral of St Bavo Ghent77
Chapel of San Brizio, DuomoOrvieto57
Duomo Prato 54
Frans Hals Museum Haarlem72
Galleria Borghese Rome174
Galleria degli Uffizi Florence821
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica Rome130
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti)Florence275
Gallerie dell'Accademia Venice394
Gemäldegalerie Dresden249
Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg58
Graphische Sammlung Albertina Vienna116
Groeningemuseum Bruges137
Hungarian National Gallery Budapest71
Koninklijke Bibliotheek The Hague59
Kunsthalle Hamburg75
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna456
Liechtenstein Museum Vienna229
Lindenau-Museum Altenburg68
Lower Church, San Francesco Assisi61
Mauritshuis The Hague91
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York794
Musée Condé Chantilly 66
Musée d'Orsay Paris430
Musée du Louvre Paris1715
Musée d'Unterlinden Colmar58
Musée Rodin Paris60
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Brussels187
Museo Correr Venice53
Museo del Prado Madrid742
Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico Venice66
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Florence105
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Siena94
Museo di San Marco Florence75
Museo Diocesano Cortona69
Palazzo Ducale Venice132
Museo Nazionale del Bargello Florence163
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte Naples68
Museo Poldi Pezzoli Milan70
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid256
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam77
Museum Mayer van den Bergh Antwerp62
Museum of Fine Arts Boston177
Museum voor Schone Kunsten Ghent78
Národní Galerie Prague91
National Gallery of Art Washington517
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerp141
National Gallery of Scotland Edinburgh84
National Gallery London545
Nationalgalerie Berlin99
Neue Pinakothek Munich100
Palazzo Vecchio Florence58
Museum of Art Philadelphia54
Pinacoteca di Brera Milan225
Pinacoteca Nazionale Siena73
Pinacoteca Vatican105
Pushkin Museum Moscow68
Residenzgalerie Salzburg77
Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller Otterlo69
Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh Amsterdam128
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam674
Rockox House Antwerp58
Royal Collection Windsor167
Royal Library Windsor61
San Francesco Arezzo135
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Venice70
Scuola Grande di San Rocco Venice126
Staatliche Museen Berlin795
Staatliche Museen Kassel 98
Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt113
Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici Vatican61
Szépmûvészeti Múzeum Budapest533
Tate Gallery London57
The Hermitage St. Petersburg1106
Upper Church, San Francesco Assisi84
Victoria and Albert Museum London82
Wallace Collection London168
Wallraf–Richartz Museum Cologne153

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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