Open Access at The Met
Data about The Met collection, including over 492,000 images of public-domain artworks, is available for free and unrestricted use.
In February 2017, The Met introduced its Open Access Initiative, which makes images of public-domain artworks and basic data on all accessioned works in its collection available for unrestricted use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Anyone can download, share, and remix images and data about artworks in The Met collection. It is also an important statement about The Met's commitment to increasing access to the collection in a digital age. Read The Met’s Image and Data Resources for more information about the Museum’s open access policy and resources.
Peer organizations
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Cleveland Museum of Art
The National Gallery of Art
The Smithsonian Institution
Contact us
For more information, or to share your project with us, email openaccess@metmuseum.org
Experience The Met collection in 3D
Explore more than 100 new 3D models of objects from The Met collection. Rotate, zoom in, and get closer than ever before.
Get Started
Discover three ways to get Open Access images and data.
Explore more than 492,000 Open Access works in The Online Collection. All Open Access images also have an “OA” icon, at the lower left of the image.
The Met’s Open Access datasets are available through our API. The API (RESTful web service in JSON format) gives access to all of The Met’s Open Access data and to corresponding high resolution images (JPEG format) that are in the public domain.
The datasets are available in CSV format, encoded in UTF-8. Users of Excel on a Mac can convert the UTF-8 to UTF-16 so the file can be imported correctly.
Projects
Find inspiration from Open Access projects.
A series of nine models were co-produced with NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) using specialized imaging techniques to realize the capture of monumental works. Rotate, zoom in, and get closer than ever before.
