Sources of information
A selective list of resources useful for researching the history of works of art, especially paintings, which prioritises digitised resources publicly accessible online. A few require registration or subscriptions. Many historic books listed are accessible on one of the digitised book websites included below.
Cataloguing standards
Spectrum: the accepted UK standard for the cataloguing of museum objects (as well as other collection management tasks). Most commercially available cataloguing software is compliant with Spectrum.
The Getty Research Institute: access to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA); Getty ULAN; Getty Provenance Index
Research methodologies
Tate Papers: an online journal that published scholarly articles on British and modern international art, and on museum practice today.
Search Tools and Databases (The Getty Research Institute). The Research Guides and Bibliographies are particularly useful.
Online books and periodicals
BnF Gallica: Bibliothèque nationale de France's digitised books, periodicals and newspapers (including Salon catalogues)
Burne-Jones catalogue raisonné
Nazi Era Provenance of Museum Collections: A Research Guide (Jacques Schuhmacher, with a foreward by Edmund de Waal, pub. date 23 May 2024)
Exhibition catalogues I: Royal Academy, London
Royal Academy catalogues: the annual Summer Exhibition from 1769 to the present, and Winter Exhibition from its inception in 1870 through to 1939.
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769–2018 (living artists)
Royal Academy Notes, 1875–1882
Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors … 1769–1904, 1905–1906 (vols I–VIII): vol. I (A–C); vol. II (C–D); vol. III (E–H); vol. IV (H–L); vol. V (L–N); vol. VI (O–R); vol. VII (S–T); vol. VIII (T–Z).
Exhibition catalogues II
The Society of Artists of Great Britain (Algernon Graves, The Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1760-1791; The Free Society of Artists, 1761-1783, 1907)
The British Institution (Algernon Graves, The British Institution: a complete dictionary of contributors and their work from the foundation of the institution, 1908)
The Royal Cambrian Academy, Plas Mawr catalogues 1882–1892
Royal Hibernian Academy
Royal Scottish Academy, 1826–1916 (members only)
Other links
Allied Artists Association, 1908–1911
Artist Biographies: British and Irish artists of the 20th century
Artists, their materials and suppliers: Jacob Simon, National Portrait Gallery online resources
British Newspaper Archive (British Library)
British Women Artists 1750–1950
Clergy of the Church of England Database
Contemporary Art Society Annual Reports
Dangerous Women Project (artist and sitter biographies)
Database of Modern Exhibitions (DoME): European Paintings and Drawings 1905–1915
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
IFAR (International Foundation for Art Research)
JSTOR: access to scholarly journal articles, books, images and primary sources
Khan Academy: Asian art and culture, a beginner's guide
Modernist Journals Project biographies: a research and teaching resource on the rise of modernism in the English-speaking world, with a central focus on periodical literature
Newspapers.com (by Ancestry): historical newspapers from the 1700s to the 2000s
NICE Paintings (National Inventory of Continental European Paintings, see also VADS)
Oxford Art Online (Grove Art Online | Benezit Dictionary of Artists)
Oxford Portraits I, II, III (Rachel Emily Malleson Poole, Catalogue of Oxford Portraits, Oxford, 1912–1925)
Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive
RAW (Rediscovering Art by Women)
Richard Eurich Catalogue Raisonné
Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
Russian Icons: a catalogue of the Russian icons in the British Museum
Suffolk Artists: promoting Suffolk associated artists, many of whom are unknown or unappreciated
TinEye reverse image search
VADS (Visual Arts Data Service): links to a wide range of special collections
Witt Library, The Courtauld Institute (2 million reproductions of works by 70,000 artists): closed in 2023 owing to the refurbishment of Somerset House; the entire collection is in the process of being digitised
European sites
Albums photographiques des Salons de 1864 à 1901 (Archives nationales, Base de données ARCADE)
Catalogue Illustré du Salon: an illustrated French language catalogue of the Paris Salon, an annual art exhibition begun in 1667 and administered from 1881 onward by the Société des Artistes Français. The title has varied somewhat over time.
Fondazione Federico Zeri: University of Bologna research centre and photo archive
Joconde: artworks in French public collections
kubikat: the collective catalogue of four of the leading German scholarly research institutes in the field of art history (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Max-Planck-Institut; Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich; Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte / Centre allemand d'histoire de l'art in Paris; Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte in Rome)
RKD: Netherlands Institute for Art History
Genealogy
MyHeritage (covers US censuses)
FindmyPast (in association with National Archives)
Sculpture
French Sculpture Census: French sculpture 1500–1960 in North American public collections
Mapping Sculpture: mapping the practice and profession of sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951
A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851
War Memorials Register (Imperial War Museum)
Pastels
http://www.pastellists.com/ (the online version of Neil Jeffares' Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, 2006)
Prints and Drawings
British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings
Collectors' marks (Frits Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins & d’estampes)
Terms in print addresses: abbreviations and phrases on printed images 1500–1900 (www.delineavit.nl)
Photography
Photographers of Great Britain and Ireland 1840–1940
Architecture
Architects of Greater Manchester 1800–1940
AHRnet Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Architects 1800–1950
Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660–1980
Archives
National Archives (UK)
Armorials
J. W. Papworth and A. W. Morant, Ordinary of British Armorials, 1874, requires specialist knowledge of armorial terminology
A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry (James Parker, A Glossary of Terms used in Heraldry, 1894)
Directories
British Telephone Directories, 1880–1984 (via Ancestry)
Burke's Peerage: Burke's Landed Gentry from 1833, information on heraldry and arms (online by subscription)
Debrett's: royal family, peerage and baronetage, British and Irish family trees, houses, estates and coats of arms
Scottish Post Office Directories, 19th–21st century (via digital.NLS.uk)
University of Leicester Historical Directories: trade and local directories from England and Wales from the 1760s to the 1910s
Libraries
Paul Mellon Centre for British Art
Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London (the afterlife of antiquity and the survival and transmission of culture, with a particular emphasis on Medieval and Renaissance studies)
Witt Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art (over 2 million reproductions of works by 70,000 artists)