Detail of: Thomas Rowlandson and Auguste Charles Pugin, British
Institution (Pall Mall), 1808. Hand-coloured etching and aquatint
(26.9 x 33.5 cm). National Portrait Gallery, London. Source: Wikipedia.

This guide is about European painters working in the fine art tradition, from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. Many of the resources listed will also be useful for studying other media, other areas, and other time periods.

Summon is usually the best starting point for finding articles, books and dissertations. 

• video intro to Summon (4 mins) 
• collection of guides if you need help with particular Summon searches

You may also want to run supplementary searches in these databases:

• EBSCO: includes Art & Architecture Source and Business Source Premier. With a British Library reader's ticket you can access a more comprehensive business database: visit the British Library's electronic resources list, and search for Business Source Complete
• Google Scholar: an alternative to Summon
  • info about using Scholar 
  • video intro to Scholar (3 mins)

For introductory articles:

• Oxford Art Online: its components, Grove Art Online and the Benezit Dictionary of Artists can be searched separately or together
• Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms for definitions. Note: running a search will also retrieve results from other Oxford reference works
• Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Some resources for women old masters:

• Advancing Women Artists project, now concluded, to promote and conserve works by women artists in collections in Florence
• Art Herstory renaissance and baroque women artists
• Bow Down: Women in Art  podcast from Frieze magazine including many European women artists from this period
• Women in the Visual Arts introductory article from Oxford Art Online, with links to many more detailed articles from Oxford
• women old masters and patrons e-book collection

​