prometheus is a distributed digital image archive that currently makes more than 3,496,000 images of over 120 databases from institutes, research facilities and museums researchable on a common user interface.

Situated at the Institute of Art History of the University of Cologne, prometheus is supported by the non-profit association prometheus e.V. which promotes the ongoing developments of the digital media for science and research.

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Image series of the week

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Samuel van Hoogstraten
„Doorkijkjes“ – With his newly developed motif of architectural and perspective views, the Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten offers endless viewing pleasure in the 17th century. | more...


News

With 59,734 data sets, the next image database in prometheus is integrated thanks to a public API. The Art Institute of Chicago offers free and unrestricted use of images of works from its collection that are presumably in the public domain or for which the museum has otherwise waived all copyrights. On its website, the museum describes what this use can look like using the example of cat images for social media platforms.

With this new image database, we are just short of the 4 million images in prometheus. A milestone that we will reach next year. :-)