The London Picture Archive is one of London’s finest picture archives. Managed by London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), it provides free online access to over 250,000 images of London from the collections at LMA and Guildhall Art Gallery.

Over 250,000 photographs, prints and drawings as well as over 1,000 maps from the collections at LMA are available to view. The images provide an extraordinary record of London and its people from the fifteenth century to the present day. The whole of Greater London is covered, as are the adjoining counties. Some of the many highlights include photographs of Victorian London; the sixteenth century ‘Agas’ map of London; Hollar’s stunning panorama from 1647; beautifully designed twentieth century posters for London’s tramways; the Cross and Tibbs photographs of Second World War damage to the City of London and the collections formerly held at the Guildhall Print Room. We regularly add new content from the LMA collections and, in particular, continue to develop descriptions and subject tags for the very large London County Council Photograph Library.

Please note that not all of the LMA image collections are currently available here; we estimate that there are around 2 million photos, prints, drawings and maps in our strong rooms in Clerkenwell! So, if you can’t find what you’re looking, please contact us. You can find further information about LMA below.

The London Picture Archive also provides access to some 6000 images of paintings, watercolours, drawings and sculptures from the Guildhall Art Gallery collection. These include 3,000 paintings and sketches from the studio collection of Sir Matthew Smith; the very fine collection of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth century masters bequeathed by Harold Samuel and an important collection of Victorian paintings comprising works by Millais, Rossetti and many other notable artists of the period. Unfortunately we do not have images of the paintings that were destroyed during the Second World War, or a number of works on temporary loan.