RKD Research subscription

RKD Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis

Meet RKD Research. The place to do endless online research in millions of documents, data and images of and about visual art from the Netherlands. RKD Research is available online for everyone free of charge. A number of extras are available if you take out a subscription.

Purchase a subscription

An annual subscription gives you access to the visual search, my workspace and the study room.

Collective subscription

As an organization, purchase an RKD Research subscription with multiple licenses.

Subscribe now and get access to the innovative visual search and search the RKD's databases by image. In addition, you get access to my workspace, a handy tool for keeping track, organizing results, linking, editing and comparing images. Wherever and whenever you want, all year round.   

Here's what a subscription to RKD Research offers, among other things:    

  • High-resolution image viewing and downloading  

  • Access to visual search, an innovative tool that simplifies searching and can quickly find and compare images  

  • Access to my workspace, a digital workbook for making selections and viewing, editing and comparing them    

  • Access to the RKD's reading room.

Click here for more details about RKD Research.

Visual search

Upload an image from your computer and visual search will search all RKD databases for similar images. This is an innovative tool that will yield totally new research results. The powerful search function visual search offers:  

  • Results regardless of black and white or colour, which also brings up historical images  

  • Searching and finding fragments of images and texts    

  • Finding mirrored or rotated images  

  • Huge time savings compared to manually searching all physical sources.

My workspace

In my workspace, subscribers can view, compare and edit images. You can download and save images in high resolution. By making selections in a digital workbook, you can easily keep your favourite records handy for different projects.

Study room 

In addition, you are of course very welcome in the study room of the RKD in The Hague, as always. To study a restricted image for example, but also the archives and books in the library.   

These are the differences between searching the RKD databases with and without a subscription:

Service / tool  

without  subscription  

with subscription  

Access to RKD Images with all databases  

V  

V  

All databases are published as Linked Open Data  

V  

V  

Use of my selections, with account    

V  

V  

Downloading low res. images  

V  

V  

Access to RKD Images Lite, over 4 million images

V  

V  

Access to visual search  

X  

V  

Access to my workspace    

X  

V  

Downloading of high res. images 

X  

V  

Access to the RKD's study room, library and archives  

X  

V  

Reduced rate for events  

X  

V