Wellcome Images historical content freely available for personal and commercial use

We are delighted to announce that over 100 000 high-resolution images, including images of manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements, are now freely available through Wellcome Images. Drawn from our vast historical holdings, the images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This means that they can be used for commercial or personal purposes so long as the original source is acknowledged (Wellcome Library, London). All of the images from our historical collections can be used free of charge. The holdings offer a rich body of historical images, ranging from ancient medical manuscripts to etchings by artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Francisco Goya. Treasures include exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts and anatomical drawings, from delicate 16th-century fugitive sheets, whose hinged paper flaps reveal hidden viscera, to Paolo Mascagni's vibrantly coloured etching of an 'exploded' torso. Photographic images include Eadweard Muybridge's studies of motion, John Thomson's remarkable 19th-century portraits from his travels in China, and a newly added series of photographs of hysteric and epileptic patients at the famous Salpêtrière Hospital. The images can be downloaded in high resolution directly from the Wellcome Images website for users to freely copy, distribute, edit, manipulate and build upon as they wish.