I need to find a picture or digital image of a specific painting and/or need information about it.
If you know the name of the artist, search the online catalog for the artist as a subject (and author), e.g. delacroix eugene. Find a book(s) on the artist and write down the call number. Catalogues raisonnés are catalogs containing all or all known works by an artist, so are helpful when attempting to find information on a particular artwork by a well-known artist. You can find catalogues raisonnés as a subheading in the catalog, or look in International Guide of Art Experts, Specialists and Catalogues Raisonnés, Ref N50.K53 1993 (2 vols.), Art Books: A Basic Bibliography of Monographs by Artists, by Wolfgang Freitag, Ref Z5938.F73 1996, and its predecessor, Ref Z5938.F73 1985, to see if one exists, and via the International Foundation for Art Research databases. If no catalogue raisonné has been compiled, then look for major retrospective exhibition catalogs for an artist that should contain a large body of an artist's work.
Look in the World Painting Index, Ref ND45 H38 (Note: there are 3 supplements to this work).
Search the ARTstor image database, which has images of works of art from all over the world, as well as the Department of Art & Archaeology's Visual Resources Collection.[Note about ArtStor: you will be able to register for and use ArtStor while within Princeton’s IP range or while accessing Princeton’s databases remotely via the proxy server.Once you leave Princeton (and are a guest/visitor, not Princeton faculty/staff/student), you will be able to access your saved images in ArtStor for 120 days, at which time you will need to login and use ArtStor within an IP range of a subscribed institution at least once in order to continue accessing ArtStor.You will also be able to download the Offline Image Viewer in order to view images you have downloaded.For more information, consult ArtStor Help– click Help in top-right corner.]
Search the Index of Medieval Art, produced at Princeton, an invaluable resource for medieval art and iconography (only a portion available online).
Art Index (now known as Art & Architecture Source, with the Retrospective version back to 1929,) indexes art reproductions in journal articles. Major works may have their own subject heading in the library catalog, e.g. Manet, Édouard, 1832-1883. Bar at the Folies-Bergère .
Google and other search engines have an image search.
Museum websites often have images for items in their collection, if one knows the owner of a particular work of art. The library also has numerous museum collection catalogs, which will be listed in the library catalog if one searches for an institution by author.
