As consortium of fourteen French museums collectively known as Paris Musées has made more than one hundred thousand works of art and photographs available online, free of cost and for unrestricted use and re-use in terms of a Creative Commons Zero waiver. State of the art technology has been used to digitize the works in high resolution 300 DPI format and new additions to the online collection are being made on an ongoing basis.
Paris Musées is presided over by Mr Christophe Girard, Deputy Mayor of Paris for Culture and is a public entity. The body includes; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Maison de Balzac,Musée Bourdelle, Carnavalet Museum History of Paris, The Catacombs, Musée Cernuschi Museum of Asian Art, Musée Cognacq-Jay, Archaeological Crypt of Notre-Dame, Musée Galliera, Museum of the General Leclerc and the Paris’ Liberation – Jean Moulin Museum, Petit Palais City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts, Musée de la Vie Romantique, Maison de Victor Hugo Paris / Guernsey, Zadkine Museum.
Paris Musées decision to make this diverse and very high quality collection available was influenced by The OpenGLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) initiative which promotes a set of principles and values focusing on Open Access for Cultural Heritage.
Masterpieces by renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne,Gustave Courbet, Eugène Delacroix and Anthony van Dyck are among many other familiar and lesser-known names which are available for download. http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en
Claude Monet, “Soleil couchant sur la Seine à Lavacourt, effet d’hiver” (1880), oil on canvas, from the collection of Petit Palais (CC0 Paris Musées / Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais)
Paul Cézanne, “Portrait d’Ambroise Vollard” (1899), oil on canvas, from the collection of Petit Palais, Paris (CC0 Paris Musées / Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais)
Gustave Courbet, “Les demoiselles des bords de la Seine (été)” (1857), oil on canvas, from the collection of Petit Palais (CC0 Paris Musées / Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais)
George Roux, Fête de nuit à l'Exposition universelle de 1889, sous la tour Eiffel, ca. 1889. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet.
Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), “Jules Vallès (1832-1885), writer”, Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée Carnavalet.
Portrait of Juliette Courbet” by Gustave Courbet (1844), oil on canvas, part of the collection at Petit Palais
“Presentation in the Temple” by Jacques Daret (1434-1435), oil on wood, part of the collection at Petit Palais, Paris
“Thirty-seven portraits of Voltaire” by Dominique Vivant-Denon (1775), print, part of the collection at Musée Carnavalet