ART 370 | Museum Studies

Museum catalogs focus on a period or genre of art found within a particular museum. 

Within these catalogs, you'll find scholarly opinions, conservation reports, provenance, and a bibliography.

If you know which museum a particular work of art is found within, try searching for a museum catalog within WorldCat.

Your search would be something like this:  "Metropolitan Museum of Art" AND catalog.

Image source:  Getty Center,   CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

Catalogues Raisonnés list and describe all of the works by a particular artist.   Sometimes they will focus on groups of artists, a particular medium used by the artist, or on a particular time period. 

For each work listed in the Catalogues Raisonnés,  the following is provided:

• title
• images
• medium
• dimensions
• description of various states, or editions
• discussion of related work, commentary by the curator
• provenance
• bibliography of articles discussing the work

Ofttimes, but not always, the Catalogues Raisonnés will also contain:

• biographical information 
• questionable works
• examples of the artist's signature

Search for Catalogues Raisonnés within WorldCat.

Image source:  Google Books.  1830.  Public domain.