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Citation Tools

Citing Works of Art

Image citations should be formatted according to the citation style you are using (Chicago, MLA, APA).

Citations generally include a combination of the following (or as much of it as can be easily determined from the source):

  • Creator's name;
  • Title of the work, as given;
  • Location of the work (museum, library or owning institution, if known);
  • Date;
  • Database collection, if known; 
    • *NOTE: Google Images is not a database. If you choose to use images found via a Google search, you will need to trace the image to its original source.
  • Rights information, if known.

See the following citation examples in Chicago Style, generally used in Art & Art History:

Image from a Book:

Alice Neel, Nancy and the Rubber Plant.  1975, Oil on canvas, 203.2 x 91.3 cm.  The Estate of Alice Neel.  From:  Ann Temkin et al.  Alice Neel.  New York:  Harry N. Abrams, 2000.  Plate 64.

Image from ARTstor/JSTOR:

Rogier van der Weyden, Saint Catherine of Alexandria.  1430-1432, Diptych panel, 18.5 x 12 cm.  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.  Available from:  ARTstor, http://www.artstor.org (accessed June 19, 2019).

Image from Museum Website:

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi). The Musicians. Ca. 1595. Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 46 5/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org (accessed June 19, 2019).

For examples in other citation styles (MLA, APA, etc.), see MIT Libraries' Guide to Citing Images or Simon Fraser University Library's Best practices for citing images.

Content in this box adapted from MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC

 

Attribution for an Image in a Digital Artifact

Provide captions for images in a digital composition or artifact (ex. slide deck, poster, infographic, etc.)

  • Indicate the "Title" of the work written in quotation marks and link it to the URL where the image is found.
  • Indicate the Author of the work either by full name (First Last) or user name (if real name is not given). Link it to the author's personal page.
  • If licensed under Creative Commons, write licensed under and then indicate the proper Creative Commons license (CC0, CC 1.0, CC by 2.0, or CC by 4.0). Link to the URL of the proper license.

Beautiful Pink flowers in macrophotography by Marco Verch is licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 

If you are using an image in the body of a traditional paper, refer to Purdue OWL's MLA Guide for the details on figures and captions in this style.