Museum Collections
In this section you will find names of institutions with great online collections and links to their database.
Legion of Honor - The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
One of the earliest collections to be fully digitized online.
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago has a massive collection of works on paper, due to a longstanding aggressive aquisition policy. The collection is only partially digitized, but still very useful.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Many objects are not reproduced, but with 350,000 objects listed, it is a phenomenal well of information nonetheless.
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Searching of French works on paper in this collectiion is hit or miss. The collections are vast, but not endless. Chances are you will not find much more than the odd item by a lesser know artists, but you could get lucky. Try a search for works by Auguste Lepere, or Odilon Redon for that matter, and prepare to be amazed!
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
While MoMA's collection doesn't have much depth in French modern printmaking, there are some very notable exceptions, such as for the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, or Jacques Villon. And it never hurts to spend some time looking at some of the masterpieces in other art historical categories.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
d'Orsay's collection doesn't contain works on paper. Those works are in the Bibliothèque Nationale. However, that collection is not digitized... There is an alphabetical artist catalogue that goes to the letter “M”… This was published circa 1968… Mmmh, yes… So, for want of an overview of the unimaginably rich collections of works on paper of the French state, enjoy going through the equally amazing holdings of paintings.
New York Public Library
The NYPL boasts of holding over 3,000 etchings, lithographs, and some drawings, by prominent 19th-century printmakers. Most of these works are part of the S.P. Avery Collection, complemented by holdings found in the general Print Collection. This collection is very rich in works on paper by Félix Bracquemond, Félix Buhot, Francisco Goya, Charles Jacque, Edouard Manet, and Camille Pissarro. Finally, don't forget to spend some time admiring the collection of prints by James A.M. Whistler.