New Collection Online!

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At the moment my mild-mannered alter ego is a receptionist in a doctor's office, and we are required to show YNN Capital Region all day long.  Yes.  Much of the time it is ignorable, frequently it is appalling, and occasionally it tosses up something of interest.

Today, that little gem was a spot on the Albany Institute of History and Art!  It was lovely to see the inside of the vault and the collections again, and it was especially nice to see Tammis Groft, the chief curator.  But part of the point of the spot was that they've created an online collections database, which is the sort of thing we all love to see.  Now I can link you directly to Ariantje Coeymans, one of my favorite portraits out there.

"Ariantje Coeymans", Nehemiah Partridge, ca. 1720; AIHA 1938.5




You can also see whole categories of objects, such as (of course) Textiles, Costume, and Accessories.  The whole collection isn't represented, not by a long shot - but what's there is gorgeously photographed.  Shoes and jewelry seem to make up the bulk of that category; the gowns listed were photographed a while ago for the physical catalogue.  But we can hope that more will show up as time goes on, because, let me tell you, there are some amazing pieces there.

"Nathan Hawley and Family Nov. 3d, 1801", William Wilkie, 1801; AIHA 1951.58




Comments

  1. Kleidung um 1800June 11, 2013 at 12:55 AM

    Thank you for providing us with a wonderful new source. There's never a better reference for recreating garments than originals :)

    Sabine

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vincent BriggsJune 11, 2013 at 7:21 PM

    Hooray! Thank you for the link. It's great to have a new source, but how did you get those pictures off the site? It would only let me click and drag a very small grainy version.

    I absolutely love the 1790's overcoat they've got under "object of the week".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CassidyJune 11, 2013 at 8:04 PM

      Sounds like you might be using a Mac? I can't save the zoomed-in version, but the originals I just right-click and save-image-as to the desktop, but I'm not sure if it works the same way with Macs.

      Delete
    2. Vincent BriggsJune 12, 2013 at 9:17 PM

      Yes, I am using a Mac. It won't let me right-click to save images. I can drag the images to the desktop from the description page, but they are the same size as they appear on the page, which is usually quite small.

      It seems that a lot of museums have their websites set up this way, The Met, Imatex, The KCI, they don't let you save the full sized pictures.
      At least The Met lets you right-click to save the detail section you are looking at, and it's still possible to take screen shots.
      Why do museums make this so difficult?

      Delete
    3. CassidyJune 12, 2013 at 9:36 PM

      That's too bad! I wonder if it's because the people who set them up just use PCs, and don't consider Mac-usability issues.

      Delete

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