A Selection from The MET’s Public Domain Collection, Now Free from All Restrictions

Feb 16, 2017



Ever since The Public Domain Review began we've long harboured fantasies about the Metropolitan Museum joining the growing ranks of those institutions (The Getty, New York Public Library, and Rijksmuseum, among others) who have opened up their digital copies of public domain works, making them free from all restrictions on use. Now, after a statement made last week, The MET have done just that — making all digital copies of their incredible public domain collection available under a CC0 license and in high resolution. While included in the vast lot of more than 200,000 images is a wonderful selection of the well known — Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, etc. — we present here our highlights from the perhaps lesser known corners (though we couldn't resist sneaking in a Paul Klee). This is the product of a casual morning's browse in which we could only get through the first 6,000 — that's not even 3% — so we highly encourage you to jump in yourselves and make use of their slick and very comprehensive filtering system. And if that wasn't enough, many of the pieces are accompanied by curatorial commentary offering the stories behind the works. Treasures await!