Visitors wanting to experience the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s art collections can now do so without leaving their homes.
CWF has joined the eMuseum Network and Google Art Project, making 6,457 and 160 pieces of art available on the two sites, respectively.
“We are excited about being able to share our unique collections with a wider audience through this partnership,” said Ronald L. Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president for collections, conservation and museums and Carlisle H. Humelsine chief curator, in a release. “The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is committed to bringing the works in our collections directly to desktops, tablets or mobile devices anywhere in the world in this very dynamic and personal manner.”
Comprising CWF’s 160 objects on Google Art Project are paintings, furniture, silver, porcelain, ceramics, prints, maps, textiles and numismatics. The site provides high-resolution images with a zoom capability.
On Google Art Project, viewers can use a search function to conduct searches by artist name, work title, art type, museum, time period and more. Viewers can also save artwork to personalized, shareable galleries. Works can also be compared side-by-side.
Through eMuseum, 55 museums — including CWF — have made 1.5 million works available online. The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg full researched, catalogued and photographed the almost 6,500 CWF-owned items posted to eMuseum; the number of objects CWF displays will grow over time.
