Web Gallery of Art

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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[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

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 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 (Arena Chapel) 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 (Palazzo Pitti) 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
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
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 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
Palazzo Ducale Venice 132
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 Fine Arts Boston 177
Museum voor Schone Kunsten Ghent 78
Národní Galerie Prague 91
National Gallery of Art Washington 517
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerp 141
National Gallery of Scotland Edinburgh 84
National Gallery London 545
Nationalgalerie Berlin 99
Neue Pinakothek Munich 100
Palazzo Vecchio Florence 58
Museum of Art Philadelphia 54
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

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  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.

External links[edit]