The table below lists drawings collections that can be searched online. By clicking on the collection name, you will be brought to their search forms. The most useful of the sites are of the Louvre, Joconde (French state museums), and the British Museum. This table will be updated, not in this post, but at a page dedicated to web resources (left side of home page and called Resources and Links). The Tate has a number of interesting pages about the intricacies of putting their collection online and the initial page can be found here.
Collection Country City/Loc. No. of Drawings No. of Drawings Online Notes
Accademia Carrara, Ambrosiana, Brera, Poldi Pezzoli, and other Lombard Collections Italy Lombardy Region 3,223 Site of the Beni Culturali, Lombardy
Albertina, Grafische Sammlung Austria Vienna 50,000 5,000 prints and drawings online. Drawings not broken out.
Ambrosiana, Biblioteca Italy Milan 12,000 8,315
Art Institute of Chicago USA Chicago 11,500 6,797
Ashmolean Museum - Oxford Univ. UK Oxford 5,090
Basel Kunstmuseum Switzerland Basel 300,000 prints, drawings, and watercolors. 2513 online
Biblioteca Nacional Spain Madrid 45,000
Bologna – Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe Italy Bologna 9,000 192
Boston Museum of Fine Arts USA Boston 712
British Museum UK London 50,000
Cleveland Museum of Art USA Cleveland 3,733 3,733
Cologne – Wallraf-Richartz Germany Cologne 1,000 1,000 19th century drawings in database. 75,000 prints and drawings in coll.
Courtauld Inst. of Art UK London 7,260
Detroit Institute of Fine Arts USA Detroit 2,500 35,000 prints, drawings, photographs, watercolors, posters and artists books
Dresden – Staatliche Kunstsammlung Germany Dresden 377 500,000 works on paper
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts France Paris 65,000 33,694 20,000 drawings and 45,000 architectural drawings
Fitzwilliam Museum - Cambridge University UK Cambridge 17,406 40,000 paintings, drawings, and prints
Flemish Art Collections – Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, the Groeninge Museum Bruges and the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent Belgium Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent 40,000
Getty Museum USA Los Angeles 700 700
Harvard University Art Museums - Fogg, Busch-Reisinger etc. USA Cambridge 24,451 Fogg has 12,000 drawings.
LA County Museum of Art USA Los Angeles
Leiden University Netherlands Leiden 12,489
Louvre France Paris 140,000 140,000
Metropolitan Museum of Art USA New York 15,000 56,663 prints and drawings
Morgan Library USA New York 10,000 7,444 Strangely, no images in database
Museum of Modern Art USA New York 10,000 5,960
National Gallery of Canada Canada Ottawa 11,136 24,000 prints and drawings. 5,595 drawings with images
National Gallery of Scotland UK Edinburgh 20,000 525
National Gallery, Washington, DC USA Washington DC 32,107 1,953 with images
National Library of Ireland Ireland Dublin 100,000 prints and drawings
National Museum Sweden Stockholm see note 21,235 500,000 prints and drawings. 2,000 French drawings of Carl Gustaf Tessin.
Philadelphia Museum of Art USA Philadelphia 652 150,000 prints, drawings, and photographs
Prado, Museo Nacional del Spain Madrid 6,300 556
Princeton University Art Museum USA Princeton 7,000 1,133
Rijksmuseum Netherlands Amsterdam 3,495 800,000 prints, drawings, and photographs
Royal Collections - Windsor etc. UK Windsor 40,000 1,072
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Belgium Brussels 2,018
Smith College Museum of Art USA Northampton 1,600 Smith shares database w. area colleges
Tate UK London 48,041 Unique Works of Art is phrase used on site.
Uffizi and other State Museums in Florence Italy Florence 3,780 145,000 records of paintings, sculptures etc. drawings not broken out. Uffizi has 120,000 prints and drawings.
Victoria & Albert UK London 1,000,000 objects online. Data for drawings not broken out.
Yale University Art Gallery USA New Haven 8,174 8,174
