About the Archive
Curated by Himanshu
Why I built this
I’m what friends would call a keeda of Indian history. It started with childhood museum trips and the artifacts in NCERT history chapters, grew through years of travelling to temples and monuments across India, and deepened when I prepared for the UPSC exam — where Indian art and culture isn’t a hobby, it’s the syllabus. Somewhere along the way I realised the world rarely sees how rich our visual heritage really is — and when it does, the images are low-resolution, unsourced, or locked away. This archive is my answer: museum-grade photography of Indian sculpture, painting and manuscripts, organised properly, sourced honestly, free to explore.
How it’s made
Every artwork page states its facts the same honest way:
- Photography from museum open-access programs (The Met, Cleveland Museum of Art)
- Public domain (CC0) — free to use, modify, and share
- Every artwork linked to its source museum and accession number
- No AI-generated images, ever
Full licensing details are on the Licensing page.
Support this archive
This project runs on one person, server bills, and a lot of chai. If the archive has helped your work or simply made you proud of what our ancestors built, you can buy me a chai:
8375942779@kotak
UPI works with any Indian payment app — GPay, PhonePe, Paytm.
Contact
Questions about licensing, spotted a factual error, or want to suggest an artifact or tradition for the archive? Reach me at cardiobeat8@gmail.com.