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Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e), free

Free public-domain Japanese woodblock prints: Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro and more, from museum open-access collections, with sizes and CC0 licences shown.

Images
36 images
Sources
from 4 sources
1080 px or larger
18 at 1080 px or larger
Cleared for commercial use
36 cleared for commercial use
Direct downloads
36 with direct download
Updated

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36 images

Picked automatically from a live search of 33 sites and refreshed daily. Thumbnails load straight from the source, never through this site. Each image belongs to its creator: check its licence on the source page before you publish.

Pictures of the floating world

Ukiyo-e, the woodblock prints of Edo-period Japan, show landscapes, actors, courtesans, travellers and waves in flat colour and bold line. Their designers (Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro, Kuniyoshi) shaped Western art and design, and their prints have long been in the public domain.

These pages collect prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art, all released under CC0, with more on Wikimedia Commons.

Using them

Flat colour and strong outlines make these prints work as posters, book covers, backgrounds and patterns, and they survive heavy cropping. Download the original for print: many museum scans show the paper’s texture, which looks good at large sizes.

Questions

Is Hokusai's Great Wave free to use?
Impressions held by museums with open access, such as the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago, are released as CC0 and free to use commercially. The verdict on each image confirms it.
Why are there several versions of the same print?
Woodblock prints were made in editions. Museums hold different impressions, with different colours and wear, and each is photographed separately.

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