Detailed information about what is currently available

History of the project
What is currently available?
Images on the database
Sponsors and donors

Many categories of works on paper have been completely catalogued. These are listed on the main page of what is available. Some parts are as yet only partly catalogued, and to save the user looking for something that is not yet here, we offer these notes.

All drawings and paintings have been catalogued, and all eastern prints. The biggest problems relate to the vast collection of western prints in the Department of Prints and Drawings. This is organised into a number of different series, and the cataloguing has systematically followed their arrangement.

The series of prints that have been catalogued:

  • all the mounted and framed prints
  • all the very large unmounted prints
  • the unmounted prints of the German, Italian, Spanish, Scandinavian, East European and American schools; the French school with the exception of the nineteenth century; and the Dutch and Flemish schools up to the end of the seventeenth century
  • the British school unmounted seventeenth-century prints, and the British mezzotints earlier than c.1830
  • the series of reproductive prints after British artists up to the letter M.
  • the satires (of all schools) until the year 1832, with the exception of a few satires in albums or books (the text of the British Museum catalogue of British satires is complete up to 1810, and the rest will be added to the records by the end of 2008)
  • the printed fans and games
  • the broadsides
  • the watchpapers
  • the larger sized prints in the series of prints showing historical events (about half the total)
  • the copper printing plates, wooden blocks and lithographic stones

The series of prints still awaiting cataloguing:

  • the unmounted prints of the Dutch and Flemish schools; most of the British school; and most of the smaller nineteenth-century prints of the French school
  • the reproductive prints after artists of all schools (with the exception of the British series specified above)
  • the smaller-sized historical prints
  • the topographical prints
  • the portrait prints
  • the illustrated books and sets of prints in bindings
  • the trade cards, cigarette cards, greeting cards and Valentines
  • the book-plates (ex-libris)

Image scanning

Scanning of the drawing collection is complete. For the prints, it is following the cataloguing of the print collection and work continues with more images added to the website weekly. At present images are available for all except the large sizes of the mounted series and most of the unmounted satires, but for few of the other unmounted prints.