Early Modern Resources

A database of images of the colonial Americas from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego, from primary sources printed or created between 1492 and ca. 1825. (John Carter Brown Library)

This website makes available a database of thousands of prints and book illustrations from early modern Britain in fully-searchable form. It also offers ancillary facilities aimed to enhance users’ understanding and appreciation of the material it presents, such as various resources contextualising prints and printmaking, as well as original research on British prints to 1700.

In 1693 the first ever pictorial survey of Scotland was published by military engineer John Slezer. More than 70 of Slezer’s original engravings from the National Library of Scotland’s collections have been digitised and can be searched by place name, and browsed by place and subject.

Website of a 2001 Bodleian exhibition, focusing on the development of printed trade cards and similar materials, with many images of examples (Bodleian Library)

The London National Gallery’s permanent collection of western European paintings spans the period from about 1250 to 1900

Online search facility for the British national gallery’s collections

searchable database of images: from African societies to New World auctions (Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite)

A substantial collection of images let down by its lack of aids to navigation (University of Wales, Lampeter)

Hollar’s first book of etchings was published in 1635 in Cologne. He was one of the most skilled etchers of his or any other time, which is all the more remarkable given that he was almost blind in one eye. The collection can be searched by keyword or browsed by themes.

A vast virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture c.1150-1750

a site providing high-quality electronic editions of Blake’s work, which aims to incorporate as much of both his pictorial and literary works as possible, to “give scholars and students access to the major intersections between the illuminated books and Blake’s other creative and commercial works” (Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities)