The Web Gallery of Art was opened in October 1996 with 1.100 images representing Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture. The images were presented in a simple html structure providing limited search possibilities. From this time on, the number of images continuously increased, and significant developments took place in the timeframe and content of the collection which now covers comprehensively the European (Western) painting, sculpture and graphic arts from 200 to 1900. Less complete but substantially covered are the sections of Medieval and Renaissance illuminations, decorative arts, and architecture. In the table below, the most important milestones in the development process are summarized. |
| Year | Month | Images | Developments in | content | timeframe | technique |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | October | 1.100 | Renaissance painting and sculpture, guided tours | 1400-1600 | simple search |
| 1997 | October | 2.900 | Gothic and Early Baroque arts added | 1200-1700 | advanced search |
| 1998 | February | 3.500 | - | - | picture postcard service installed |
| 1998 | September | 4.000 | section for illuminations created | - | - |
| 1999 | February | 4.000 | - | - | image viewer with zooming installed |
| 1999 | March | 5.000 | - | - | switching over to frames |
| 1999 | June | 5.000 | glossary of art terms, downloadable catalogue | - | - |
| 1999 | July | 5.000 | supplementary database (history, museums, etc.) | - | - |
| 1999 | December | 6.000 | late Romanesque art added | 1150-1700 | - |
| 2000 | March | 6.500 | focus on Flemish primitives | - | - |
| 2000 | October | 7.300 | - | - | search engine improved |
| 2000 | December | 7.300 | - | - | picture postcard service improved |
| 2001 | May | 8.500 | late Baroque, Rococo periods added | 1150-1800 | - |
| 2001 | November | 9.200 | - | - | MIDI background music introduced |
| 2002 | April | 10.100 | - | - | Dual-Window Mode introduced |
| 2002 | October | 11.000 | focus on German art (particularly graphic arts) | - | - |
| 2003 | May | 11.600 | guided tours reworked | - | - |
| 2004 | September | 11.600 | - | - | migration to new server, new graphic design |
| 2004 | December | 12.300 | Neoclassicism, Romanticism periods added | 1150-1850 | - |
| 2005 | February | 13.300 | - | - | user-generated, custom artist lists |
| 2005 | May | 13.800 | focus on Spanish art | - | - |
| 2006 | April | 15.300 | - | - | experimental discussion board launched |
| 2006 | August | 16.100 | - | - | MP3 background music introduced |
| 2007 | January | 16.100 | - | - | experimental discussion board closed |
| 2007 | April | 17.100 | focus on 16th-18th-century French art | - | - |
| 2007 | September | 18.400 | focus on medieval mosaics, stained-glasses and metalworks | - | - |
| 2008 | February | 18.700 | - | - | links to on-line classical radio stations added |
| 2008 | May | 19.300 | section of dcorative arts created | - | - |
| 2008 | June | 20.300 | focus on Dutch Golden Age | - | - |
| 2008 | November | 20.300 | - | - | musical picture postcards introduced |
| 2008 | December | 21.300 | Realism period added | 1150-1875 | - |
| 2009 | June | 22.000 | - | - | selection of MP3 music significantly widened |
| 2009 | October | 23.000 | Romanesque period, Byzantine icons included | 1000-1875 | - |
| 2010 | July | 25.200 | focus on Italian Renaissance art | - | - |
| 2010 | December | 26.000 | Italian Renaissance architecture included | - | - |
| 2011 | April | 27.000 | - | - | displaying larger images |
| 2011 | August | 27.600 | focus on Italian mosaics | - | - |
| 2011 | November | 28.400 | - | - | experimental mobile version launched |
| 2012 | May | 29.000 | - | - | experimental mobile version improved and synchronized |
| 2012 | November | 31.100 | French Impressionism included | 1000-1900 | - |
| 2013 | March | 31.800 | Impressionism outside France included | - | - |
| 2013 | July | 32.500 | Section of illuminated manuscripts enhanced | - | - |
| 2013 | November | 33.300 | focus on Italian frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries | - | - |
| 2014 | March | 33.900 | focus on Italian paintings from the 13th century | - | new images are of higher resolution |
| 2014 | July | 35.100 | section of architecture created | - | - |
| 2014 | November | 36.000 | Baroque and Rococo fresco decorations | - | - |
| 2015 | March | 36.800 | Section of medieval illuminated manuscripts enhanced | - | - |
| 2015 | July | 38.000 | focus on Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age | - | - |
| 2015 | November | 39.300 | focus on Italian Trecento and fresco decorations in villas in Veneto | - | - |
| 2016 | March | 40.100 | focus on Romanesque architecture and 19th-century sculpture | - | - |
| 2016 | July | 41.100 | focus on Medieval art and architecture | 700-1900 | - |
| 2016 | December | 42.400 | focus on Renaissance and Baroque architecture | - | - |
| 2017 | April | 43.400 | focus on graphics and sculpture, as well as on Italian 15th-16th-century fresco cycles | - | - |
| 2017 | September | 44.300 | focus on 18th-19th century architecture as well as on Scandinavian 19th-century painting | - | increasing the security of the site (transforming it to https) |
| 2018 | January | 44.800 | ground plans and cross-sections of buildings were added to the enhanced architecture section | - | wide screen version of the architecture section was introduced |
| 2018 | May | 45.400 | focus on 17th-century Flemish art and architecture | - | wide screen version of the sculpture section was introduced |
| 2018 | September | 46.000 | Early Christian and Pre-Romanesque art and architecture were included | 200-1900 | - |
| 2019 | January | 46.700 | focus on 16th-17th-century French art and architecture | - | - |
| 2019 | May | 47.300 | focus on 17th-18th-century French art and architecture, as well as on 14th-15th-century Italian painting | - | - |
| 2019 | September | 48.000 | focus on 16th-17th-century European architecture | - | - |
| 2020 | January | 48.600 | focus on Renaissance art and architecture outside Italy | - | HTML pages are converted from ANSI to UTF-8 encoding |
| 2020 | June | 49.500 | focus on 16th-century High Renaissance and Mannerist sculpture in Italy | - | - |
| 2020 | December | 50.500 | focus on 15th-century Renaissance sculpture in Italy | - | wide screen version of the entire collection was introduced |
| 2021 | June | 51.400 | focus on 14th-century sculpture in Italy | - | wide screen version of the entire collection improved |
| 2022 | January | 52.800 | focus on art and architecture at the end of the 19th century, extended to the beginning of World War I | - | website security strengthened |
| 2022 | March | 53.000 | decision not to increase the number of images; starting a project to re-design and upgrade the existing guided tours | - | - |
| 2022 | August | 53.000 | 18 existing guided tours re-designed and upgraded; decision to focus on designing new guided tours | - | - |
| 2022 | November | 53.000 | introducing a new guided tour: Art Nouveau | - | - |
| 2023 | May | 53.000 | introducing a new guided tour: Renaissance chapels with sculpted decoration | - | - |
| 2023 | July | 53.000 | introducing a new guided tour: Still-life painting | - | - |
| 2023 | September | 53.000 | introducing a new guided tour: Lombard painting schools in the 16th century | - | postcard service improved |
The graph below summarizes the development of the collection in terms of the number of images. |
 | |
| Please send your comments, sign our guestbook and send a postcard.postcard. © Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx. |