This section was compiled by Erin Allen.
Cornell uses two image databases: ARTstor and Luna Insight. With both of these programs, you can search for images, access information on the images and create presentations. ARTstor is a searchable database of licensed digital images and associated catalog data. The collection covers the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts and design, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Cornell University has licensed the Luna Insight® software as an image delivery system for several image databases that are owned or licensed for access by the Cornell University community.
ARTstor Image Gallery A deep and broad collection of world art, architecture and visual art.
Art History Survey Collection Key monuments of world art. Soon, this will also include the AMICO collection.
Carnegie Arts of the United States American art, architecture and visual culture from colonial times to the 20th century.
Hartill Archive of Architecture and Allied Arts An architectural history of the Western world from Antiquity to present.
Huntington Archive of Ancient Art A photographic overview of the arts of Asia from 3000 BC through the present.
Illustrated Bartsch European prints from the Renaissance to the 19th century.
Mellon International Dunhuang Archive Rich documentation of the important Buddhist cave shrines at the Dunhuang oasis site on the ancient silk route.
Museum of Modern Art Architecture and Design Collection 20th century design.
Native American Art and Culture from the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution Native American Art and Historic Photographs.
The Schlessinger History of Women in America Collection The collection embraces 35,000 high quality images from the Schlessinger Library’s photographic archives.
Luna Insight Andrew Dickinson White Collection of Architectural Photography The Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection is comprised of approximately 13,000 19th- and early 20th-century photographs of architecture, decorative arts and sculpture. White (1832-1918), the first president of Cornell University, established the collection by donating several thousand images from his personal architectural library.
Beyond the Taj: Architectural Traditions and Landscape Experience in South Asia The MacDougall Database is a collection of images depicting Indian architecture and culture. Primarily photographed by the late professor Robert D. MacDougall, the images currently are owned by Cornell University. This database is a joint project of Bonnie Graham MacDougall, the Knight Visual Resources Facility, and the Faculty Grants for Digital Library Collections of Cornell University Library.
The Billie Jean Isbell Andean Collection Images from the Andes are derived from Professor Billie Jean Isbell’s years of research in the Andes, primarily in the southern Andean department of Ayacucho and specifically in the village of Chuschi, Peru, and the surrounding region of the River Pampas Valley in the province of Cangallo. Included in this collection are approximately 1500 photographs, thirteen songs, Professor Isbell’s ethnography, "To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village", as well as selected publications.
Claire Holt Indonesian Art Collection This collection consists of slides of Indonesia created for the Cornell Indonesian Arts Project. Subjects include art, architecture, ceremonies, landscapes, paintings, people, sculpture, textiles and theatre.
Cornell Political American Collection The Cornell University Collection of Political Americana is comprised of approximately 5,500 Presidential promotional and commemorative items dating from 1789 to 1980. The collection contains political materials in a variety of formats, including cartoons, prints, and posters; lapel buttons, ribbons, textiles; hats, and other costume items; ballets, broadsides, leaflets, and other ephemera; pamphlets and other formal publications; sheet music and songbooks; and a variety of three-dimensional items. The majority of the collection was donated to Cornell by private collector Susan H. Douglas between 1957 and 1961. Elections from 1832 to 1960 are particularly well represented.
David Rumsey Historical Maps The David Rumsey Collection focuses on 18th and 19th century North and South American cartographic materials. The collection includes atlases, globes, school geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript maps. The online selection is an expanding cross section of images designed to highlight the depth and breadth of the collection. The digital images and associated descriptive data are © Cartography Associates.
Farber Gravestone Collection The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource documenting the sculpture on more than 9,000 gravestones, most of which were made prior to 1800. These early stones are both a significant form of artistic creation and precious records of biographical information, now subject to vandalism and to deterioration from the environment. The data accompanying the photographs includes the name and death date of the deceased, the location of the stone, and information concerning the stone material, the iconography, the inscription, and (if known) the carver.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art The Johnson Museum has one of the finest collections of art in New York State and is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the country. Spanning the history of art, the Museum's collections are especially strong in Asian Art, 19th- and 20th-century American art, and the graphic arts.
Icelandic and Faroese Photographs of Frederick W.W. Howell At the end of the nineteenth century, the British artist, photographer and traveler Frederick W.W. Howell, F.R.G.S., recorded Icelandic and Faroese landscapes, farmsteads, towns and people in a remarkable series of photographs that depicted Iceland and the Faeroe Islands on the edge of modernity.
Inscriptions of Eleusis This collection of images of ancient inscriptions on stone from Eleusis, Greece, comprises documents of the Sanctuary of the Two Goddesses and the public documents of the deme that were set up within or in front of the Sanctuary, issued by the deme of Eleusis, or set up in the public sanctuaries of the deme. Most of the images are photographs taken by Kevin Clinton, Department of Classics, Cornell University.
Japanese Historical Maps The Japanese Historical Maps Collection of the East Asian Library contains about 2,300 early maps of Japan and the World. Represented in this online collection are a selection of maps and books from the collection. The maps were selected by Yuki Ishimatsu, Head of Japanese Collections at the East Asian Library, and scanned and put online by David Rumsey and Cartography Associates.
NYS Aerial Photographs Aerial photographs of New York State.
Rare and Manuscript Collection Images A growing collection of images from the general collections of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. Images are drawn from a variety of rare book collections, as well as the University Archives and other manuscript collections.
Reuleaux Collection of Kinematic Mechanisms This image collection contains a sampling of 20 Reuleaux kinematic mechanisms. Kinematics flourished in the 19th century as machine inventors learned to transmit information and forces (power) from one element in the machine to another. Franz Reuleaux, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Zurich and Berlin, set out to analyze, codify, and synthesize kinematic mechanisms so that engineers could approach machine design in a rational way. He created more than 800 models of mechanisms to embody his basic machine elements, and he authorized a German company, Gustav Voigt Mechanische Werkstatt, in Berlin, to manufacture more than 300 of these models for technical schools to use in teaching inventors and engineers about machines. Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White, acquired a collection of 266 Reuleaux models for the university in 1882. Two hundred and twenty of these cast iron and brass models are still owned by Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering – the most complete extant set of the Reuleaux mechanisms in the world.
Saskia Images of ancient art and architecture licensed from Saskia, Ltd. by the Cornell University Library for the use of Cornell faculty, students and staff.
Scholar's Resource The Scholar's Resource Collection is comprised of quality images of art, architecture, and cultural heritage from around the world. Scholar's Resource is an umbrella organization which distributes and licenses the images for multiple vendors. Currently vendors include Saskia, Archivision, Davis Art Images, the Bridgeman Art Library, and Hartill Art Associates.
The AMICA Library The AMICA Library contains more than 100,000 works of art from the collections of the member museums of the Art Museum Image Consortium. Cultures and time periods range from contemporary art, Native American and Inuit art, to ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian works, along with Japanese and Chinese works. Types of works include paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs, as well as textiles, costumes, jewelry, decorative art, and books and manuscripts.
Utopia Collection of Renaissance Art Images of European Renaissance art, primarily from the 15th and 16th centuries. It is a joint project of Cornell's Department of the History of Art, College of Arts and Sciences; the Knight Visual Resources Facility, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art; and the Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
The Willard Straight Collection Willard Straight worked in Korea as a Reuters correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War and as a U.S. diplomat. He sketched Japanese and Russian soldiers and Korean people. More than 200 of his drawings, photographs and postcards comprise a remarkable collection that offers a rare example of Western perspectives on Korea during the early 20th century.
