Your Paintings is a website created by the BBC and the Public Catalogue Forum, which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.  There are around 212,000 records for paintings from over 3000 locations on the site.  Most records have a digital image of the painting, along with details of where the original painting is located.

The site can be browsed by painting title, artist or the geographical location of the collection or gallery, and also searched by keyword.  This free resource will be of interest to historians from a variety of fields, as well as history of art scholars.  Keyword searches reveal paintings of World War One trenches, many medical-related images and key figures in history from across the globe.

(c) BBC Your Paintings

Painting from the Bodleian Libraries and other places in Oxford

The Bodleian Libraries section of the site contains over 330 oil paintings.  These are mainly portraits of people linked  to the Bodleian Libraries, royalty and images of the decorated ceilings in the Bodleian Library.

There are also collections from other parts of the University (e.g. Pitt Rivers Museum), colleges and halls (including Oriel, Brasenose, St Stephen’s) and Oxford Brookes University.  Many other places in Oxfordshire have also contributed images including municipal buildings, schools and museums.

Related Links Bodleian Libraries homepage | Oxford History of Art Department | Art and Architecture LibGuide