Art Datasets for Machine Learning

A curated list of publicly available art datasets for machine learning research, covering classification, object detection, visual question answering, aesthetics, generative models, sketches, and more. Includes both scientific benchmark datasets and museum open-access collections.

Contributions welcome via pull request.

Availability: ✅ freely downloadable (direct download, Zenodo, Kaggle, HuggingFace, GitHub, etc.) 📩 requires application or approval 📄 paper only, no public data link found 🔒 browse only, no bulk download

Table of Contents

• Research Datasets
  • Classification, Style & Attribution
  • Object Detection, Pose & Iconography
  • Aesthetics & Emotion
  • Faces & Portraits in Art
  • Multimodal & Visual QA
  • Sketches & Drawings
  • Forgery & Authentication
  • Generative AI & Diffusion
  • Cartoon, Manga & Illustration
  • Cultural Heritage & Archaeology
  • Street Art & Graffiti
  • Knowledge Graphs & Metadata
• Museum & Gallery Collections
• Aggregated & Cross-Institution Datasets
• Related Resources

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Research Datasets

Sorted by year (newest first) within each category.

Classification, Style & Attribution

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
Stylebreeder	6.8M images, 1.8M prompts	2024	✅	paper, huggingface	AI-generated images from Artbreeder with style clusters. NeurIPS 2024, CC0
fruit-SALAD	10,000 images	2024	✅	paper, code	Synthetic benchmark for style vs content similarity in embeddings
StyleBabel	135,000 artworks	2022	📄	paper (ECCV)	Free-form style tags and captions from art/design students on Behance
ArtBench-10	60,000 images	2022	✅	paper, code, kaggle	Class-balanced benchmark, 10 styles, clean annotations
WikiArtVectors	68,094 artworks	2022	📄	paper	Precomputed CLIP embeddings for WikiArt, 132 styles
DELAUNAY	11,503 images	2022	✅	paper, code	Abstract and non-figurative art, 53 artists
contempArt	14,398 images, 441 artists	2020	✅	paper, zenodo, github	Contemporary art from German art schools with social network data (456K edges) and demographics
DomainNet	600,000 images	2019	✅	website	345 classes across 6 domains (painting, clipart, sketch, photo, etc.)
NoisyArt	90,000+ images	2019	✅	paper, code	Webly-supervised artwork recognition with noisy web labels, 3,000+ classes
Multitask Painting Collection	~100,000 images	2019	✅	paper, data	Multitask learning: artist, style, genre, period
Best Artworks of All Time	~8,000 images	2019	✅	kaggle	50 most influential artists, popular starter dataset
BAM!	2.5M+ images	2017	📄	paper	Behance Artistic Media: content, emotion, and media labels. ICCV 2017
Art 500K	~500,000 images	2017	📄	paper, data	Large-scale art retrieval. Download link dead (404 as of 2026-04). Compiled from WikiArt + WGA + Rijks + Google Arts
Pandora 18k	18,038 images	2016	📄	paper	18 art styles, expert-labeled, higher annotation quality than WikiArt
Painter by Numbers	103,250 images	2016	✅	kaggle	Kaggle competition: predict whether two paintings are by the same artist
Rijksmuseum Challenge	112,039 images (3,593 paintings)	2014	✅	paper, data, code	Artist, material, type prediction
Painting-91	4,266 images	2014	✅	paper, data	91 painters, style classification
PRINTART	988 images	2012	✅	paper, data	Print art classification
WikiArt	~250,000 images	✅	varies	website, crawler, source 1, source 2, kaggle	3,000+ artists, most widely used art dataset. API signups currently disabled
WikiArt 215K (HuggingFace)	215,000 images	✅	varies	huggingface	Preprocessed WikiArt with image URLs and captions (title, artist, year, genre, style). 150K+ with parseable dates
Web Gallery of Art	~19,000 images	ongoing	✅	website	European fine art, encyclopedic scope

Object Detection, Pose & Iconography

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
Poses of People in Art	2,454 images, 10,749 figures	2024	✅	paper, data	First openly licensed pose estimation dataset for art, 22 depiction styles
Human-Art	50,000 images, 123,000 person instances	2023	📩	paper, website	Natural and artificial scenes (paintings, cartoons, sculptures). CVPR 2023
DEArt	15,000+ images	2022	✅	paper, data	69 object classes, 12 pose categories, European paintings 12th-18th c.
ArtDL 2.0	42,479 images	2021	✅	paper, data, code	Iconographic classification, 19 Iconclass classes, Renaissance art
Materials In Paintings	19,325 paintings, 227,810 bboxes	2021	✅	paper, data	Material perception (fabric, metal, wood, etc.) with fine-grained labels
IconArt	5,955 images	2018	✅	paper, huggingface, data	Weakly supervised iconographic element detection (angels, saints, etc.)
People-Art	images from 41 art movements	2016	✅	paper, code	Cross-depiction person detection across photos, cartoons, art
Oxford VGG Paintings	210,000+ paintings (10K annotated)	2014	✅	paper, data	Object retrieval in paintings, crowdsourced object tags

Aesthetics & Emotion

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
ArtELingo-28	~200,000 annotations, 28 languages	2024	📄	paper	Multilingual art emotion annotations. EMNLP 2024
APDDv2	10,023 images, 85,191 scores	2024	✅	paper, code	Expert aesthetic scores and language comments, 10 attributes. NeurIPS 2024
BAID	60,337 images, 360,000+ votes	2023	✅	paper, code	BoldBrush artistic image aesthetics with user votes. CVPR 2023
ArtELingo	~1.24M annotations (EN/AR/ZH/ES)	2022	✅	paper, website	Multilingual emotion annotations on WikiArt. EMNLP 2022
ArtEmis v2	260,000 contrastive instances	2022	✅	website	Contrastive extension balancing positive/negative emotion pairs
TAD66K	66,000 images, 47 themes	2022	✅	paper, huggingface	Theme-oriented aesthetics, 1,200+ annotations per image. IJCAI 2022
ArtEmis	455,000 annotations on 80,000 artworks	2021	✅	paper, website	Emotion attributions + verbal explanations for WikiArt. CVPR 2021
WikiArt Emotions	4,105 images, 20 emotion categories	2018	✅	paper, data	Crowdsourced emotions across four Western art periods
AVA	250,000+ images	2012	✅	paper, kaggle	Photography aesthetics from DPChallenge, scores + style labels

Faces & Portraits in Art

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
WikiArt Face	6,095 face images	2021	✅	data, code	Faces cropped from portraits across art movements
AAHQ	~25,000 images	2021	✅	code	Artistic portrait faces from Artstation, various painting styles
MetFaces	1,336 face images (1024x1024)	2020	✅	code	Faces from Met artworks, aligned and cropped for GAN training
Artistic Faces Dataset	from 103,250 artworks	2019	✅	website	68 facial landmarks plus artist/style metadata

Multimodal & Visual QA

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
CognArtive	LLM art analyses	2025	✅	paper, website	LLM-generated formal art analyses and aesthetic descriptions
MELArt	annotations over Wikimedia art	2024	✅	paper, code	Multimodal entity linking in paintings
AQUA	QA pairs over SemArt	2020	✅	paper, code	Visual and knowledge-based question answering on art
Artpedia	2,930 paintings	2019	📄	paper	28,212 text sentences (visual + contextual), cross-modal retrieval
OmniArt	2,050,017 images	2018	📄	paper, data	Multi-task, multi-label, metadata-rich. Download links dead (as of 2026-04). Compiled from Rijks + Met + WGA
SemArt	21,383 images	2018	✅	paper, data	Semantic art descriptions paired with images

Sketches & Drawings

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
Creative Birds / Creatures	10,000 sketches each	2021	✅	paper, code	Part-annotated creative sketch datasets. ICLR 2021
ImageNet-Sketch	50,000 images, 1,000 classes	2019	✅	code, kaggle	Sketch versions of ImageNet classes for domain shift evaluation
OpenSketch	400+ sketches, 12 objects	2019	✅	paper, website	Product design sketches from professional designers
SketchyScene	29,056 scene sketches	2018	✅	paper (ECCV), website	Scene-level sketches with instance annotations
Quick, Draw!	50M drawings, 345 categories	2017	✅	website, code, huggingface	Google crowd-sourced sketch game, CC BY 4.0
Sketchy Database	75,471 sketches of 12,500 objects	2016	✅	paper, website	First large-scale paired sketch-photo dataset. SIGGRAPH 2016
TU-Berlin Sketches	20,000 sketches, 250 categories	2012	✅	huggingface	Human sketches for sketch recognition research

Forgery & Authentication

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
Van Gogh Authentication	338+ images	2024	✅	paper, data	Originals, human forgeries, and AI-generated fakes
DeepfakeArt Challenge	32,000+ image pairs	2023	✅	paper, kaggle, code	AI art forgery and data poisoning detection benchmark

Generative AI & Diffusion

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
Danbooru2023	5M+ images, 162M+ tags	2023	✅	data (2021), huggingface (2023)	Crowdsourced anime/illustration, ~30 tags per image
CommonCanvas	~70M CC images	2023	✅	paper, models	Copyright-safe training data for diffusion models. CVPR 2024
TWIGMA	800,000+ images	2023	✅	paper, data	AI-generated images from Twitter with metadata. NeurIPS 2023
Pick-a-Pic	1M+ preference pairs	2023	✅	paper, huggingface	Human preferences for text-to-image, used for RLHF
JourneyDB	4,429,295 images	2023	✅	paper, data, huggingface	Midjourney images with prompts, captions, VQA. NeurIPS 2023
AI-ArtBench	185,015 images	2023	✅	data (IEEE), kaggle	60K human + 125K AI-generated, real vs AI art detection
Art-fm	650K art images (training set)	2025	📄	paper, code	Flow matching for art generation trained on 650K curated images (WikiArt + 7 museum sources, SSCD-deduped from 950K). LMU Munich, ICCV 2025
SCFlow	N/A (model only)	2025	✅	paper, code	Style/content disentanglement via conditional flow matching in CLIP space. Same lab as Art-fm. ICCV 2025
LAION-Aesthetics	~120M images (score >7)	2022	✅	info, data	Aesthetic-filtered subset of LAION-5B, used to train Stable Diffusion v1
DiffusionDB	14M images, 1.8M prompts	2022	✅	paper, code, huggingface	Stable Diffusion prompt-image pairs from Discord
COYO-700M	747M image-text pairs	2022	✅	data	Large-scale image-text pairs, CC-BY-4.0

Cartoon, Manga & Illustration

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
iCartoonFace	389,678 images, 5,013 characters	2020	📄	paper	Large-scale cartoon face detection and recognition
Manga109	109 volumes, 21,142 pages	2020	📩	paper	Japanese manga with annotated frames, faces, text, and characters

Cultural Heritage & Archaeology

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
CULTURE3D	41,006 drone images, 20 sites	2025	✅	paper, code	Cultural landmarks 3D reconstruction (pyramids, Forbidden City, etc.)
ARTeFACT	445 images, 11,000+ annotations	2024	✅	paper, huggingface	Pixel-level damage segmentation benchmark. 15 damage classes (i.e. cracks, dirt, material loss), 10 substrate materials, 4 content types, 20 media types (i.e. paintings, frescoes, manuscripts, mosaics, photographs). AFL-3.0
MuralDH	5,000+ images	2024	✅	paper, code	Dunhuang mural restoration: segmentation, inpainting, super-resolution
WikiScenes	landmark photo collections	2021	✅	code	Architectural landmarks with captions and 3D geometry. ICCV 2021
ArchAIDE	435 sketches, 381 photos	2020	📄	paper	Archaeological pottery classification via shape and decoration

Street Art & Graffiti

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
17K-Graffiti	~17,000 images	2022	✅	code	Graffiti classification. VISAPP 2022

Knowledge Graphs & Metadata

Dataset	Size	Year	Avail.	Links	Notes
PainterPalette	~10,000 painters	2023	✅	code	WikiArt + Art500k + Wikidata painter metadata, network analysis
ArtGraph	135,038 resources, 875,416 facts	2022	✅	paper, data	Knowledge graph linking WikiArt and DBpedia

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Museum & Gallery Collections

Open-access collections from cultural institutions. Sorted by collection size (largest first) where size is known, then alphabetically for collections without published counts.

Large Collections (100,000+ objects)

Collection	Size	Avail.	License	Links	Notes
Smithsonian Open Access	11M+ records, 2.8M+ images	✅	CC0	github, website, AWS	19 museums + research centers
Victoria and Albert Museum	1M+ records, 500,000+ images	✅	personal/educational	API	Decorative arts, fashion, design. IIIF, OpenAPI spec
Te Papa (New Zealand)	1M+ objects, 200,000+ downloadable	✅	CC varies	website	First Australasian large-scale open access museum
Rijksmuseum	800,000+ objects	✅	CC0 (public domain works)	data portal	API and bulk downloads, high-resolution images
Louvre	500,000+ works	✅	varies	website, JSON docs	Append .json to any artwork URL. CSV export of searches
The Metropolitan Museum of Art	470,000+ artworks	✅	CC0	github	Comprehensive metadata CSV, regularly updated
iMet Collection	375,000 images	✅	varies	paper, kaggle	Fine-grained attribute recognition challenge
Cooper Hewitt	215,000+ objects	✅	CC0	github, API	Smithsonian design museum, JSON per object
Paris Musees	150,000+ images	✅	CC0	website, API	14 Paris city museums. GraphQL API with free account (session cookie auth). ~8K paintings + ~63K drawings with dates and images
National Gallery of Art (DC)	130,000+ artworks	✅	CC0	github	CSV format with Wikidata identifiers

Medium Collections (10,000-100,000 objects)

Collection	Size	Avail.	License	Links	Notes
SMK (National Gallery of Denmark)	88,000+ works	✅	CC0	API, website	Leading OpenGLAM institution
National Palace Museum (Taiwan)	70,000+ digitized images	✅	open gov	data	Chinese art, calligraphy, ceramics, bronzes. IIIF compliant
Yale Center for British Art	~70,000 IIIF images	✅	public domain	website	Linked Open Data via RDF
Cleveland Museum of Art	61,000+ artworks	✅	CC0	github, API	CSV and JSON data plus public API
Museo del Prado	~40,000 artworks	✅	non-commercial	knowledge graph	Linked Open Data, SPARQL-queryable
Finnish National Gallery	36,000+ artworks	✅	CC0	github	Ateneum, Kiasma, Sinebrychoff collections
Getty Museum	30,000+ high-res images	✅	no known restrictions	website	Open Content Program, IIIF access
Whitney Museum	17,000+ works	✅	CC0	github, API	CSV updated nightly. 20th/21st century American art
Williams College Museum of Art	~15,600 records	✅	CC0	github	CSV format with thumbnails
Walters Art Museum	10,000+ records	✅	CC0	github	Static data files (API v1 retired 2023)

API / Full Collection Access (size unspecified)

Collection	Avail.	License	Links	Notes
Art Institute of Chicago	✅	CC0	github, API, website	REST API + bulk JSON dumps on AWS S3
Harvard Art Museums	✅	varies	API docs, website	REST API refreshed daily, IIIF-compatible
Minneapolis Institute of Art	✅	CC0	github	JSON metadata, updated approximately daily
Brooklyn Museum	📩	varies	API, examples	REST API, registration required
British Museum	✅	non-commercial	website, github	SPARQL/Linked Data. Export up to 10K records per search
National Gallery (London)	✅	CC BY-NC-ND 4.0	API	~2,300 paintings. Elasticsearch-based API
ColBase (National Museums of Japan)	✅	varies	website	Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kyushu national museums
Science Museum Group (UK)	✅	CC varies	API, github	JSON/CSV exports, 37 GitHub repos
Auckland War Memorial Museum	✅	CC varies	API	API plus Linked Open Data
QAGOMA (Queensland, Australia)	✅	CC varies	data	CSV, refreshed monthly. Australian and Asia-Pacific art

Metadata Only / Limited Access

Collection	Avail.	License	Links	Notes
MoMA Collection	✅	varies	github	Artist, artwork, exhibition data. Artworks.csv (via LFS) includes ImageURL column with direct JPEG links for ~64K works
Carnegie Museum of Art	✅	CC0	github	Pittsburgh collection metadata
The Tate Collection	✅	CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0	github	Metadata CSV includes thumbnail URLs. Images downloadable via CDN (swap _8.jpg for _10.jpg for 1536px). ~38K paintings/drawings with dates
Nationalmuseum Sweden	✅	CC0	github	Wikidata-linked metadata
ArtUK	🔒	restricted	website	UK public art, browsable only. MDS extract API exists but aggressive bot protection (403 on all programmatic access, including Selenium, as of 2026-04)

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Aggregated & Cross-Institution Datasets

Dataset	Size	Avail.	License	Links	Notes
Europeana	50M+ cultural heritage objects	✅	varies	data	Aggregator across thousands of European institutions
Wikidata: Sum of All Paintings	hundreds of thousands of paintings	✅	CC0	project	Structured data linking paintings across museums. SPARQL queryable
art-museums-pd-440k	~440,000 images	✅	CC-BY-4.0	huggingface	Public domain museum art with bilingual captions, WebDataset format

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Related Resources

• awesome-openaccess-glam - Curated list of museum open access projects
• museums-on-github - List of museums with GitHub accounts
• GLAM Workbench - Tools and pre-harvested datasets from GLAM institutions
• Museum APIs wiki - Comprehensive list of museum APIs
• Awesome Machine Learning Art - Tools and projects (not datasets)
• Digital Art History Directory - Open data collections for art history
• Hugging Face "art" datasets - Searchable hub
• BigLAM on Hugging Face - GLAM datasets from the BigScience project