Thousands of Free Images Online From New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has posted hundreds of thousands of images online for free non-commercial use under the Creative Commons License.

That means you can use the images in your work, as long as you're not profiting from them, and as long as you credit the Met.

What's so great about that? Well, if you've been to the Met, you will have seen one of the world's greatest collections of art, ranking up there with the British Museum, Paris's Louvre and Florence's Uffizi as a treasure trove of beautiful things.

And now, all these fabulous images are free for us to use.

If you're thinking "so what? I can get tons of free stuff at Google Images", then beware.

All creative artists have to understand the basics of Copyright law, and avoid using work that is created by other people, work which we are not entitled to use.

In particular, image libraries like Getty Images can be very aggressive in enforcing their copyright, so watch out for stuff you download for free - that isn't really free at all.

Of course, non-profit sources like Wikipedia can be a good place to look for Creative Commons images, but the library at the Met is in a class of its own.

To find the free images, go to http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online and start searching for what you need. The site is easily searchable by entering keywords like "horse", "Goya" or "car" - whatever your project requires.

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