Today I'm downloading a book about the Chinese scholar's garden. I can't visit the Met without seeing the scholar's garden, and I can't visit NYC without a day at the Met -- but I have nothing in my collection! Yay for downloads!
Maybe we can get together the next time I'm in town, Peggy.
Tina, maybe your daughter still likes the paper editions too? I sometimes like to sit with my cheap, badly printed editions of some pages from the
Book of Kells, even though my digital edition has a far better display of the artwork. (Of course, nothing compares to seeing the real thing . . . which is now on display at Trinity in Dublin. Just saying.
)
I'm told the Getty and the Guggenheim also have free collections online, though I haven't checked yet. I'm hoping the Freer will soon, because I would like some books on Whistler's Peacock Room. One of the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen.
I have to say that I'm surprised to see the Met being one of the first museums to do this, when they are such **#@#!! blankity-blanks about usage rights. They have a painting of George Washington that I really wanted for my first book, but they charged over $1,000 for the first print run alone AND artistic control over the reproduction. I wasn't about to spend that much of the small advance on one image when I needed more than 100 for the book, and Simon & Schuster wasn't about to give anybody control (not even me, phooey!), so it didn't happen. I tend to tell that story every time I visit the Met, too.
Not that I hold a grudge, or anything!
and The William too!
