Where to Look
Where to Look
去哪里查
Institutions whose Chinese textile holdings can be searched online, each checked by opening the search interface. Image terms are given their own column: finding an object is easy, knowing whether you may reproduce it is not, and the answer differs sharply from one institution to the next.
This archive catalogues twenty-seven objects. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese textiles survive, and nearly all of them are elsewhere. What follows is where to look — checked in September 2026 by opening each search interface. Links and terms change; the institution’s own page is always the authority.
The rights column is the one researchers get caught by. Finding an object is easy; knowing whether its image can be reproduced is not, and the answer differs sharply from one institution to the next. What is recorded here is what each institution states on its own pages — where nothing is stated, that is what the entry says, and it should not be read as permission.
Images free to use
The public-domain images at these institutions can be downloaded and used without applying for each one. When preparing teaching material, a paper or a reference page, look here first.
Collection database
Around 6,800 records answer to a search for Chinese textiles. Filters cover department, object type, material and technique, and there is a switch for open-access images. Qing court dress is well represented.
ImagesPublic-domain works are released under CC0 — download, publish and adapt without asking. An API and bulk CSV are published as well.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Textiles and silk embroidery are separate top-level categories among the museum’s sixteen. Around 410,000 images are published. Results can be exported as CSV. Together with the Beijing Palace Museum this holds the other half of the Qing imperial collection.
ImagesGraded licensing, and the clearest terms of any institution here: low-resolution images (1 megapixel) are CC0; medium-resolution (6 megapixel) are CC BY 4.0, free and without application, requiring only a credit line.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Searchable by culture, medium and description, with an open-access filter. Its Chinese textile holdings include important early silks; it co-published the standard catalogue on Liao, Jin and Yuan weaving.
ImagesMore than half the collection is open access under CC0, with over 61,000 records available through a free API that needs no key.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Roughly 45,800 records, filterable by period, geography and classification. The former Freer and Sackler galleries; strong on Chinese material generally.
ImagesPublic-domain items are CC0 under Smithsonian Open Access. The search page has a filter for public-domain images.
NoteUse this address rather than the general si.edu search — the two are separate systems and textiles are easier to find here.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
A substantial textile department with Chinese holdings. The website search works normally in a browser.
ImagesOver 50,000 images carry a CC0 designation and may be used commercially or otherwise without fee; a credit line is encouraged but not required.
NoteA public API is available at api.artic.edu and is the better route for anything systematic.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Smaller in Chinese textiles than the museums above, but notable for labelling the rights status of every single object using the RightsStatements.org vocabulary.
ImagesPublic-domain works carry a Public Domain Mark and may be used freely, including commercially; in-copyright works are offered under CC BY 4.0 for limited non-commercial and educational use.
NoteThe per-object rights statement can be quoted directly in a citation.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Around 1,100 records answer to a search for Chinese textiles. Entries give object type, registration number, date and place of production, and acquisition history.
ImagesImages marked with the CC licence may be used for teaching, in a thesis and on a scholarly website, with the credit “© The Trustees of the British Museum” and under the same licence. Commercial use, including a published paper, needs separate permission.
NoteThe search page needs JavaScript.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
More than 1.2 million objects, searchable by object type, maker, materials and technique, place of origin and accession number. One of the deepest Chinese dress collections outside China.
ImagesLow-resolution images may be used for non-commercial research or private study, including a thesis, without applying. High-resolution downloads require accepting the terms, and some images remain restricted; commercial use goes through V&A Images.
NoteResults export as CSV or JSON, and there is an open API.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Around 8,700 objects under Art & Culture: China, among them Qing men’s jifu robes, women’s skirts remade from earlier dragon robes, and uncut robe lengths woven for the eighteenth-century Dutch market. The cataloguing is unusually detailed.
ImagesRecords commonly note that further permission is required; write to the museum for each image.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
The museum’s published inventory lists 181,709 items under textiles and embroidery — by a wide margin the largest such holding anywhere. The digital collection can be filtered across twenty-five object categories and twenty-one periods.
ImagesNo image terms are published on the collection pages. The museum’s site terms prohibit automated collection of its content and require written consent for reuse, so treat anything beyond reading as needing permission first.
NoteThe interface needs JavaScript. Item counts come from the separate inventory site.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
The Chinese historical sub-collection lists 1,518 entries, with three further sub-collections for contemporary Chinese, Western and ethnographic material. Uniquely, it can be filtered by technique — kesi, zhuanghua, brocade, embroidery, gauze, damask and so on — which no other database here offers.
ImagesNo image terms found on the collection pages; ask before publishing an image.
NoteThe site’s “advanced search” is a general page search, not the collection database — use the address above.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Filterable by period, material and object class, with textiles and embroidery among the material options. Coarser than the two above, but useful for cross-checking.
ImagesNo image terms published.
NoteThe English site is actively maintained and is often the easier way in.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Official registry
The official national register — 1,557 items across five rounds since 2006, with 3,998 named holders of the traditions. Suzhou, Hunan, Guangdong and Sichuan embroidery, and many regional and minority embroidery traditions, are listed here under traditional fine arts, each with a project number, category, applicant region and protecting institution.
ImagesThe register data itself is official government material. Images on the site carry no stated terms.
NoteThe item tables load through JavaScript.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
Journal index
State-funded and built for public access, which makes it the most openly licensed of the Chinese article platforms. Registration is needed for full text. The place to look for Chinese-language scholarship on textile and dress history.
Open the search ↗Checked 2026-09
This list will go out of date as institutions redesign their sites. If a link fails or terms have changed, please say so.