Search the digital collections of over 4,000 art museums.

Pictures of paintings: a virtual art museum

If you can't get to the art museum, maybe try bringing the art museum to you. This independent project presents photographs of select classic, public-domain paintings in an interactive format so you can get the full museum effect from home. Note:...

Explore the British Museum's collection across time and continents in this interactive Google Arts and Culture experience.

Twelve artworks you'll love zooming into

Zoom in on these famous paintings to see what's hiding up close, then go exploring the rest of Google's incredible Arts and Culture hub.

Explore a list of the best art museums in the US, including Atlanta's High Museum of Art, New York's Dia Beacon, and more.

Explore the Museum of the World

This collaboration between the British Museum and Google presents an interactive timeline showing artifacts from five world regions. Go back in time and learn about each item from the museum.

As of 2023, there are about 1.1 billion objects stored in 73 of the world's largest natural history museums, but only about 16% of specimens are available in digital archives.

An immersive curation of the world's rock art

A living archive of humanity’s ancient art and symbols, our shared history that is embedded as rock art and cave art in the landscape

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, explained

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, houses 1.5 million works spanning centuries—from ancient Egyptian artifacts to impressionist masterpieces. Its iconic Fifth Avenue building, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, and tranquil Cloisters location reflect its dedication to showcasing global creativity.

Flip through centuries-old artifacts in this 3D library

Archaeology is hands-on work, giving researchers the ability to analyze artifacts from as many sides as possible to find marks left by those that came before us. While looking at pictures of artifacts gives you some insight, you're limited to...

Explore over 46,000 pages of Charles Darwin's manuscripts

The American Museum of Natural History hosts almost 35,000 digitized folios related to evolution within the fields of botany and zoology from Darwin's Beagle voyage. High-resolution color images, geological findings, and annotated books from Darwin's personal library are also viewable.

A massive list of wildly specific museums

The definition of a museum varies depending on who you ask and where you find yourself. Need proof? Check out this list of over 80 museums—dedicated to niche interests like hand fans, hovercrafts, and celebrity leftovers (really).

This interactive website features nearly 40,000 photos from Wikipedia for you to create visual mosaics with.

View a collection of digital museum resources about the Apollo program

Created by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, this collection includes detailed biographies of astronauts and scientists who worked on the program and interactive features on the technologies that made it possible.

When a museum closes, it may need to sell or auction assets to pay off its debts, which can result in the breakup of valuable collections and the relocation of pieces to successor institutions and private collectors.

A look at the principles guiding the Met's collection practices

While there are serious questions about the provenance of pieces that the Met has acquired in the past, the museum says its collecting practices today are all guided by three principles: research, transparency, and collaboration. A particularly interesting facet of their approach to research is looking into how pieces might have changed hands during the Nazi occupation of Europe and to whom (and where) they truly belong.

Scientists used mass spectrometry to determine the materials in a 1690 painting

Previously used to map the distribution of molecules on biological tissue samples, researchers combined the technique with machine learning to uncover six layers of pigments, binders, and a thin gold leaf layer within *The Marriage of the Virgin*, from a collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The technique may help identify and track artists' material use to learn about pieces of unknown provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

See a collection of Mary Cassatt's artwork

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's digital collection includes 15 of Cassatt's works, including several iconic watercolors, like "Portrait of the Artist" and "Mother Playing with Child." Alongside them, you can read helpful contextual information assembled by Cassatt scholar H Barbara Weinberg.

Works of art on motherhood at the Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City contains one of the world's most prestigious collections, and this page draws together classic and contemporary works created around the theme of motherhood.

Explore a database of more than 220,000 shipwrecks, the largest compilation to date.

The history of the Met

From a single sarcophagus to a collection of more than a million artifacts that span nearly the entirety of human civilization, the Met and its importance have grown significantly over the last 150 years. This history of the museum hits all the highlights, including important acquisitions, new wings and galleries, and the importance of the buildings that hold and display all of the incredible artwork.

How art-backed loans work

Using your art collections—some of which are valued in the millions—to secure a loan is becoming more common among collectors. Here's a breakdown on how banks and private lenders are making best of the opportunity in liquidity.

The dark side of museum collections

Using the example of a sacred Nepali religious object that was stolen from a village in the 1980s and which later appeared in the Met’s collection, this article looks at the controversies that have swirled around some of the museum’s pieces. In addition to the Nepali statue, the piece outlines decades of questionable collection practices––some of which are clear-cut cases of theft.

The Louvre in Paris has its own particle accelerator for art analysis

The Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire serves as a noninvasive tool for identifying and quantifying trace elements present in artworks by analyzing how particles backscatter off targets. This information can help detect forgeries and determine a piece's provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Explore a database of ancient graffiti

Take a look at thousands of pieces of graffiti from the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, including name tags, crude jokes, and crude drawings. The database, maintained by classical scholars, allows you to explore maps of the cities and images of the original inscriptions.

Check out a list of the 100 best artworks about America, including Norman Rockwell, Jasper Johns, and many more.

See the collection and interior of Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The museum hosts hundreds of the artist’s paintings and many personal objects. Follow along while a curator shares context behind some of her iconic works and offers insights into O’Keeffe’s life and career.

Explore a gallery of astronomical images curated by the European Space Agency, which includes illustrations and images of aurorae, planets, stars, galaxies, stellar nurseries, exoplanets, and black holes.

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

The federal agency dedicated to supporting museums and libraries spent $280M in 2024

The Institute of Museum and Library Services—a division of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities—administered $294M in FY 2024, accounting for nearly 40% of the National Endowment's total spending.

Search this digital archive of 19th-century "panoramic" maps of US and Canadian cities

The panoramic map was a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You can peruse a gallery of almost 2,000 of them in this digital archive from the Library...

Priceless paintings were quickly taken during a 2008 raid of a Zurich museum

Three men walked into Emil Bührle Foundation during open hours. One of the men pulled out a loaded gun and forced the museum staff to the floor, while the others stole four paintings close to the door. The stolen paintings included a Degas, a Monet, a Van Gogh, and a Cezanne, totaling a whopping $160M in stolen art.

View an interactive collection of historical documents from the Viking project

This collection includes original mission bulletins, engineering and planning documents, and interview segments from more than 80 Viking team members who made the historic exploration of Mars’ surface by a lander possible.

Test your historical knowledge with this daily game that shows you 10 historical artifacts and asks you to guess their time period and place of origin.

Tracking Georgia O’Keeffe paintings across America

Explore different significant locations where the painter’s works have lived, including the White House, from 1997 to 2004. Pick a nearby museum to witness the masterpieces up close.

Watch a guided video tour of the Museum of Malware Art

The site includes installations, sculptures, textiles, musical pieces, and galleries inspired by malicious software and related technologies, including the ILOVEYOU virus, encryption protocols from ransomware attacks, and the Industroyer malware framework used by Russia to cut power to Ukraine.

Museums are updating their approach to wall texts amid 8-second-long attention spans

The explanatory text found next to art in museums has long been integral to the exhibit experience, helping provide context for artists, the piece, and cultural movements. Some institutions are removing the texts to allow visitors to interpret the pieces unaided; others are seeking to optimize length or recruit a variety of perspectives—called "labelists"—to offer less authoritative context for the pieces.

Whose bodies are held inside the American Museum of Natural History?

The American Museum of Natural History holds the remains of at least 12,000 people collected via purchase, donation, or expedition. This article by a professor of art crime details their attempt to identify the individuals whose remains the museum held. Amid questioning, AMNH announced it would change its human remains policy. At the time of the article's publication in October 2023, AMNH had few human remains on public display.

Listen to found cassette tapes from around the world

A growing catalog collects tapes discovered in Barcelona, New York, and other locations, featuring digitized audio for easy listening alongside any accompanying visuals or notes. Some audio fragments include voice memos and mixtapes as well.

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library of the Web

Founded in 1996, the Archive promotes open access and the digital preservation of online information and, as of 2026, contains more than 200 petabytes of content, including over one trillion web pages, 56 million books and texts, 13 million audio recordings, 1.3 million software programs, and other digital content.

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: a virtual tour

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum houses the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on exhibit in western North America. Located in San Jose, California, the museum is home to over 4,000 artifacts, including four mummified individuals. The institute was founded by the centuries-old mystical Rosicrucian brotherhood, a group which claims special awareness of ancient wisdom. Take a 3D tour, complete with descriptions of some its most famous pieces.

Integrating mixed reality has made art galleries and museums more interactive and accessible

The technology bridges the gap between history and modernity in such spaces by attracting new, younger audiences while preserving cultural heritage through risk-free immersion. Mixed reality experiences, such as visiting reconstructed historical scenes or seeing virtual twins of lost paintings, can be programmed with software features for visitors with disabilities.

Recreating ancient faces: where art meets archaeology

Artistic renderings and reconstructions of ancient people are one way to bring the past to life, providing viewers with insights into and empathy for those who came before. This article details how modern artists and archaeologists work together to...

5 works of art that were destroyed and repaired

Art preservation is a delicate skill; art reconstruction is even more challenging, especially when the damaged works are centuries old. This Artnet guide details five of the most famous cases of dismembered works (from Manet, Cézanne, and more) that were repaired by specialists, allowing audiences to see the pieces in the way they were intended.

Experience Maya culture through art—both ancient and modern

This gallery showcases how Maya culture endures through both ancient monuments and modern artistic expressions, tracing visual traditions from pre-Columbian carvings and murals to contemporary works created by Maya artists.

Explore a gallery of space-based images and animations of Earth

This collection compiles shots of well-known locations, such as US national parks, and natural features, including aurora borealis and fall foliage, to provide a high-level view of Earth's surface.

Explore these collections of early human fossils

The human fossil record is filled with massive gaps, leaving archaeologists tiny samples to try and glean the history of our species. At this site, you can browse through the human fossil collection, including 3D rotatable scans of hundreds of fossils from different species of early humans.

Breaking down the numbers on art theft trends

Cultural property theft has been on the rise in recent years, and the recovery rate of such artifacts is estimated to be below 10%. Explore dozens of other statistics here.

A free archive of firsthand historical documents from explorers of America

Maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society, the American Journeys collection contains more than 18,000 pages of primary source documents—journals, letters, maps, and accounts written between roughly 1000 CE and the early 1800s. These include eyewitness records of the Norse arrival in North America, Spanish conquistador expeditions, and the Lewis and Clark journey. Browse this list of highlights where pages from the original texts are specified (clicking a link opens a PDF).

Explore rare artifacts from the archives at Mount Vernon

This series from Washington's Presidential Library showcases rare books, maps, letters, and artifacts from his collection. It illuminates how he learned, governed, traveled, and understood the world around him.

What to see at the Met

With hundreds of thousands of objects on display at any given time, how do you decide what to see at the Met? This video tour from Behind the Masterpiece walks through some of the museum’s most popular and interesting works, like the ancient Temple of Dendur and John Singer Sargent's 'Portrait of Madame X', explaining their cultural context and why they’ve captivated visitors for so many years.