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Art Institute of Chicago Artworks Scraper

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Art Institute of Chicago Artworks Scraper

Art Institute of Chicago Artworks Scraper

Scrapes the Art Institute of Chicago open API — 131k artworks with metadata, dominant colour analysis (HSL), style/subject taxonomy, and IIIF image URLs. Supports full-walk, keyword search, date-range, type/department filters, and by-ID lookups. No API key required.

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BowTiedRaccoon

BowTiedRaccoon

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12 hours ago

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Scrape artwork records from the Art Institute of Chicago's open REST API. Returns full metadata for 131k+ artworks including title, artist, department, medium, dimensions, classification, style/subject taxonomy, dominant colour analysis (HSL), and IIIF image URLs. No API key required — the AIC API is fully public with CC0 metadata.

What you get

Each scraped record contains:

FieldDescription
idUnique AIC artwork ID
titleArtwork title
artist_displayFull artist display string (name, nationality, dates)
artist_titlePrimary artist name (short form)
date_displayHuman-readable date string (e.g. "1906" or "c. 1890–1900")
date_startEarliest possible year for the artwork
date_endLatest possible year for the artwork
medium_displayMaterials and technique description
artwork_type_titleArtwork type (Painting, Drawing, Print, Sculpture, etc.)
department_titleMuseum department holding the artwork
classification_titlesClassification tags array (e.g. "oil on canvas", "european painting")
dimensionsPhysical dimensions string
place_of_originCountry or region where the artwork was created
is_public_domainTrue if the artwork image is in the public domain (CC0)
credit_lineDonor/acquisition credit line
gallery_titleGallery currently displaying the artwork (null if in storage)
color_hDominant colour hue (HSL, 0–360)
color_sDominant colour saturation (HSL, 0–100)
color_lDominant colour lightness (HSL, 0–100)
subject_titlesSubject/theme tags array (e.g. "landscapes", "water lilies")
style_titlesArt style tags array (e.g. "Impressionism", "20th Century")
image_idIIIF image identifier (UUID)
iiif_image_urlFull IIIF image URL (843px wide JPEG) — null if no image
aic_artwork_urlCanonical artwork page URL on artic.edu

Modes

Walk mode (default)

Paginate through the full collection of 131k+ artworks:

{
"mode": "walk",
"maxItems": 1000
}

Omit maxItems to walk the entire collection.

Add publicDomainOnly: true to restrict results to CC0 artworks (image downloads safe):

{
"mode": "walk",
"publicDomainOnly": true,
"maxItems": 500
}

Search mode

Full-text keyword search across all artwork metadata:

{
"mode": "search",
"query": "impressionism",
"maxItems": 100
}

Filter mode

Filter by artwork type, department, or date range:

{
"mode": "filter",
"artworkTypeTitle": "Painting",
"dateFrom": 1880,
"dateTo": 1920,
"maxItems": 200
}

Available filters:

  • artworkTypeTitle — artwork type string (e.g. "Painting", "Drawing", "Print", "Sculpture", "Photograph")
  • departmentTitle — department name string (e.g. "Photography and Media", "Painting and Sculpture of Europe")
  • dateFrom — filter artworks with date_start >= this year
  • dateTo — filter artworks with date_start <= this year

Combine multiple filters in one run.

By-ID mode

Fetch specific artworks by their AIC numeric ID:

{
"mode": "by_ids",
"artworkIds": [16568, 27992, 28560],
"maxItems": 10
}

IDs can be found in AIC URLs: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/16568/water-lilies.

Use cases

  • Art analytics datasets — combine with the Met Museum actor for a comprehensive GLAM collection
  • Colour research — the color_h/s/l fields enable colour-palette analysis across 131k artworks
  • Style/subject taxonomystyle_titles and subject_titles provide ready-made ML training labels
  • Public-domain image pipelines — filter is_public_domain: true and use iiif_image_url for CC0 downloads
  • Museum collection monitoring — run incrementally to detect newly added records

Rate limits

The AIC API is fully open — no authentication required. The actor runs at ~60 requests/minute with a 1-second delay between pages, well within the API's polite-use advisory. No proxy is needed.