Collage: online image database

December 22, 2007 12:13 PM

Collage is an online image database from the collections of the City of London Libraries and the Guildhall Art Gallery. Images cover the last five centuries. You can search by key word or browse by theme, artist/engraver, person or place.

Some random pictures I liked: the Duchess of Devonshire canvassing, 1784; the interior of St Bride's, Fleet Street, 1830 (the inside of the church was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War, so it's interesting to compare the restored church with the picture); and A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in London, 1825.

There're also some Virtual Exhibitions - "The London that never was" is particularly interesting.

If you want to visit the Guildhall Art Gallery itself, entrance is free on Fridays.

posted by paduasoy (7 comments total)

Kinda nifty, thanks. Don't forget to use UK spellings when you search!
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:40 PM on December 22, 2007

Hey, there's neat stuff here. I need a bigger monitor! Let's try browsing with a Google search, and figure out a way around that annoying viewer.
posted by steef at 3:00 PM on December 22, 2007

I live here.

(In the terrace on the right.)
posted by Grangousier at 3:25 PM on December 22, 2007

Their virtual exhibition on the photography of Henry Dixon is amazing. He captured images of a lot of 17th and 18th C. buildings that I've never seen before. Thanks for the cool link!
The museum's logo on each of its images is kinda annoying, though.
posted by DenOfSizer at 5:40 PM on December 22, 2007

PS I like the way you did that search, steef! Cool!
posted by DenOfSizer at 5:41 PM on December 22, 2007

Thanks for the tweaks, steef - I'm on a dial-up connection at the moment so they're particularly useful to me. Like the "Distrest Poet" image you picked, too. And what a great place to live, Grangousier - complete with reindeer on the building oppposite.
posted by paduasoy at 12:14 AM on December 23, 2007

The reindeer - and, indeed, the building opposite - are long gone. In fact everything is apart from the building I live in. And the obelisk in this one (though they've taken the lamps off now), which is looking in the opposite direction.
posted by Grangousier at 2:33 AM on December 23, 2007