Islamic Art History : MUSEUMS & IMAGES

The Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME) offers free and open access to the rich cultural legacy of the Middle East and North Africa by bringing together collections from a wide range of cultural heritage institutions. The platform is built upon the open source Spotlight and Blacklight frameworks, and supports presentation of resources compliant with the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) using the Mirador viewer.

The Database covers examples of the painted page dating from about 700 to 1900 CE from all over the Islamic world. Persian painting and Ottoman painting are especially widely covered but Arab, Sultanate, Mughal and other sources are all included. The Database includes illuminations, decorated Qur'an pages and book bindings as well as figurative paintings in manuscripts, albums and on single pages.

The Aga Khan Program at Harvard University publishes scholarly works on the history of Islamic art and architecture.

Pleiades is a community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places. It publishes authoritative information about ancient places and spaces, providing unique services for finding, displaying, and reusing that information under open license.

The Qantara, Mediterranean Heritage, and Eastern and Western Crossings database is an online database which presents a transversal vision of the Mediterranean’s cultural heritage of nine partner countries—France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.The database is not limited to the heritage of partner countries, but includes the entire artistic heritage of the countries on the Mediterranean coast, and is constantly updated.

The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) is a vast archive featuring the cultural and historical heritage of the Gulf and wider region. It includes archives, maps, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs and much more, complete with contextualized explanatory notes and links, in both English and Arabic.

Sets of images of sites in the ancient world, including those in Islamic countries. From the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU.

Over 100,000 images of the architecture of Muslim societies, curated and contextualized for scholarly research.

A portal to search several sources of Creative Commons media at once, including Flickr, Google, Yahoo, and Wikimedia Commons

Exhibits and collections from institutions from around the world. Images are not available for download directly from site, but their source is listed.

Contains maps, literature, documents, books and other relevant material concerning the past, present and future of historic cities and facilitates the location of similar content on the web.

A collection of more than 50 historic maps from the 16th to the 20th centuries CE, selected from the Harvard Map Collection.

Over 4000 images of patterns and design elements from Islamic art and architecture around the world.

The mosque category of a richly-illustrated guide to the world's greatest sacred sites, religious art & architecture, and historic religious places

Over 40,000 images from one of the world's largest archives focusing on historic and current images of the Islamic world. You need to create an account to view images.

Database of the California State University IMAGE Project. See Islamic Architecture, Islamic Applied Arts, and Islamic Painting galleries.

Selected works from the Museum’s unparalleled manuscripts, drawings, paintings, decorated ceramics, metalwork, and architectural ornamentation from Muslim civilizations.

Search nearly 2 million objects from the British Museum's collection, including many prints, paintings, and objects from the Islamic world. Limit search to "Images only."

The David Museum collection contains calligraphy, miniature painting, glass and ceramic work, metalwork, textile, carpet and stone arts.

A virtual museum that explores Islamic art and material culture in the Mediterranean region, with submissions from 14 countries.

The Ashmolean has an important collection of works from the Islamic Middle East, totalling well over 4,000 objects. The collection includes fine pieces of ceramics, metalwork, glass, wood and ivory, textiles, and works on paper and parchment, made in a wide region extending from Spain to Central Asia over a period of over a thousand years.

This website is conceived as a companion to the Islamic galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Intended as a general introduction to Islamic art, it draws upon examples from the museum’s comprehensive collection, which includes works from an area extending from southern Spain to Central Asia, ranging in date from the seventh century up to the present day. The text is designed for readers who seek to go beyond the obvious surface beauty of Islamic art to discover the rich historical and cultural traditions from which this art emerged.

Search over 400,000 records for works of art in this world renowned collection.

Masterpieces of Islamic art, including metalwork, ceramics, jewelry, woodwork, textiles, coins and glass.

Search over 1 million objects from the V&A's collection, including many prints, paintings, and objects from the Islamic world. Limit search to "only records with images."