Images
Chipstone/Longridge Images | Image Collections | Virtual Exhibits

Chipstone and Longridge Collection Images [SEARCH]

The Chipstone Foundation was created in 1965, in part for the purpose of preserving and interpreting the decorative art collections of Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin. Over 100 works of Early American furniture, more than 270 ceramic objects and 135 prints dating from the 17th to the early 19th century, belonging to the Chipstone Foundation, are now represented in a searchable database produced at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, General Library System, with Chipstone support. More than 1,250 images (full views and selected details) have been digitized. [more information] Virtual exhibits of the Chipstone collections are also available on their website at www.chipstone.org.

Called one of the finest private collections of British delft and slipware in the world, the Longridge collection comprises over 500 objects dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, represented here by 800+ images of full views and details. The collection is more fully documented in the 2-volume catalogue: "The Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware," by Leslie B. Grigsby, with contributions by Michael Archer, Margaret Macfarlane, and Jonathan Horne (London: Jonathan Horne Publications, c2000). [more information]

Image Collections

Note that images are also frequently available at individual museum websites. Included in the following section are large image collections and image collections especially concerned with the Decorative Arts or Material Culture.

Ad*Access from Duke University is a database of over 7,000 North American print advertisements from 1911-1955. The images are fully searchable, or you may browse by subject area. The site also includes a timeline of international events, U.S. politics, dicoveries and technology, humanities and entertainment and other events that shape a culture. See also Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920.

American Memory, compiled by the Library of Congress National Digital Library, is a gateway to primary source materials regarding the history of the United States.Over nine million items are available through this project, including an image database with many decorative arts images.

Bayou Bend Collection contains images from the Museum's extensive collection of American Decorative Arts.

Digital Archive of American Architecture is an image database from Boston College. Slides are by Professor Jeffrey Howe, who created the site. Contains 1,500 images of American architecture. Originally created for a class at Boston College: From Saltbox to Skyscraper.

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 a collection of over 9,000 advertising images from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. An award winning site, and valuable resource.

Farber Gravestone Collection contains 13,500 images documenting sculpture on gravestones. Most of the gravestones date before 1800 and are located in the Northeastern region of the United States. The site is sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society.

Flowerdew Hundred is an early land grant in Virginia located along the James river. Archaeological excavations have uncovered artifacts from the earliest days of habitation through the 20th century. The database contains images of 300 of the 200,000 recovered artifacts.

The J. Paul Getty Museum's Explore Art webpage provides images of works at the Getty Center and Getty Villa. Getty Collections include a variety of European decorative arts. A link to their extensive research library catalog is available, see the Getty Research Institute's Research Library Overview

The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Online Catalog, includes records for almost half of the Library's 13.7 million photographs, prints, posters and drawings. Approximately one million of those records are accompanied by digital images. The Division has also prepared a helpful annotated list of links to other searchable online photo and print collections. See their Picture Catalogs Online finding aid.

The Library of Virginia Digital Library Program Photograph Collections contains 10 photograph collections associated with the history of Virginia.

London maps and topographical prints of 18th and 19th century London and Great Britain are accessible via the MOTCO UK Directory and Image database. An electronic facsimile of John Rocque's 1746 map of London is also available.

London's history, society and art are represented in Collage, an image database of 20,000 works (prints, drawings, paintings and watercolors) from the Guildhall Library and Guildhall Art Gallery of London.

New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Library, Picture Collection provides 30,000 images of American history and life, New York City, costume, and other subjects. The digitized images are taken from books, magazines, newspapers, photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923.

The Photography Collection at the Denver Public Library, Western History/ geneaology Department. The database contains about 120,000 images of early Colorado.

SPIRO is the visual online public access catalog of the University of California at Berkeley Architecture Visual Resources Library's collection of over 250,000 slides and 20,000 photographs.

The Thinker ImageBase provides access to the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, including 82,000 images of objects from the deYoung Museum and its holdings of American decorative arts.

The Victoria & Albert Museum Collections website provides access to over 43,000 images of ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, textiles, and more. Click on the link "Access to Images" to search. Also see their Links page for other online resources they have identified.

The Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database provides images and descriptive information for furniture, ceramics, textiles, and other 19th and early 20th century material culture artifacts from Wisconsin museums and historical sites.

Worcester Art Museum, Early American Painting Collection includes a timeline and bibliography.

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Virtual Exhibits

An African American Album: The Black Experience in Charlotte & Mecklenburg County is a pictorial history of African Americans in that region from slavery to the mid-twentieth century.

America in Caricature 1765-1865 is an online exhibition from the Lilly Library, Indiana University's rare book and manuscript library. Nice images, extensive text, short bibliography.

America Votes: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from the Duke University Special Collections Library contains images of documents from presidential campaigns form John Adams to Bush/Cheney. Good quality large scale images, but only a few items per campaign, and not every campaign is represented.

Angelica Singelton Van Buren 1817-1877 is an exhibition from Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina of books once owned byAngelica Singleton Van Buren.

Chicago Public Library Digital Collections includes virtual exhibits primarily associated with the history and culture of Chicago.

Expositions of industrial arts began on a national level in the 18th century and expanded to international scope in the 19th century. These exhibitions contributed to wide transmission of design ideas and industrial techniques for the manufacture of objects of decorative art and material culture. For a variety of virtual exhibits and informative websites on these expositions, see the following: Expomuseum, EarthStation9 (see Worlds Fair Guide), The Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, 1851 (University of Kansas), 1851 Project: The Great Exhibition (Victoria & Albert Museum, London), Photographs of International Expositions (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia 1876 (Free Library of Philadelphia), and The Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia 1876 (Univ. of Delaware Library). Complete electronic facsimiles of three illustrated catalogs: Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: the Industry of All Nations, 1851; Illustrated Catalogue of the Universal Exhibition, published with the Art Journal [1867-1868], and Masterpieces of the Centennial International Exhibition Illustrated, 1876-78 (3 volumes), are available on the e-facsimile portion of this site.

Legacies, a virtual exhibit from the Smithsonian, tells the stories behind more than 250 representative objects, collected by the museum since it was founded in 1846, ranging from the furniture from Appomatox Court House to ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland. These stories not only reveal what America as a nation has decided to save and why but also speak to changing visions of national identity.

Library of Congress Exhibitions links to the many Library of Congress virtual exhibits.

Metropolitan Museum of Art's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History provides several illustrated thematic essays relating to material culture in their American Art: Colonial Art subsection. For example, see topics such as: "Coffee, Tea and Chocolate in Early Colonial America," "English Pattern Books in Eighteenth Century America," "American Rococo," "American Needlework in the Eighteenth Century," and coverage of individual artists including John Townsend and Paul Revere.

Mexico: From Empire to Revolution, based on two exhibits at the Getty Research Institute, presents photographs of European colonialism in Mexico from 1860 through 1910. Includes a timeline and biographical information on the photographers.

Portraits, Worcester [Mass.] Portraits in the American Antiquarian Society Collection, provides access to images of 31 local residents via portraits dating from the 18th through the 20th centuries.

Sold in Oregon: Historical Oregon Trademarks is an exhibit of late nineteenth and early twentieth century products from Oregon and their trademarks.

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