A lot of people are probably familiar with the beautiful Closer to Van Eyck website about the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece. The website was recently updated and now includes further works by Jan van Eyck but beware one caveat which has been pointed out by Douglas McCarthy, Collections Manager at Europeana:
“These images are not available for commercial publications or other items made for profit. Images will be provided free of charge for scholarly publications, although shipping and handling fees may apply.”
CODART claims this while also stating that the website provides “high-quality, standardized technical images of the paintings available online in open access.”
Given that van Eyck died in 1441 these images should really be available at no fee. Thankfully, in a few years all European institutions will have to abide by Article 14: what is in the public domain in analogue form stays in the public domain in digital.
Emma Stanford, Digital Curator at the Bodleian Digital Library, created a quiz to help you find your favorite manuscript in their collection. Take it and see! Click here.
The New York-based Wildenstein-Plattner Institute (WPI) is digitizing and will make available their archives: 100 years of annotated sale catalogues, letters and notes.
Over 100,000+ artworks from 14 Paris museums are now available as open content!
The Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia has recently digitized over 1,000 drawings, prints, watercolors and posters and made high resolution images available online!