Welcome to Royal Museums Greenwich Images: the world's greatest source of historical maritime images and home to renowned collections from our sites, which include the National Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory, Queen’s House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark.

Our exceptional collections of over 4 million objects reach across continents, cultural divides, tumultuous seas and cosmic voids. Search, license and instantly download film footage and high-quality images of paintings, prints and drawings, maps and charts, scientific instruments, astrophotography, ship plans, historic photographs, manuscripts, ship models, antiquities and uniforms.

Our expert team is on hand to help in finding the right image or film footage for your project. Contact us images@rmg.co.uk  and subscribe to our newsletter for our latest news and themed image selections.

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Inspired by our collection? Discover our brand licensing programme and develop fantastic contemporary products endorsed by our world-renowned museum.

The images we have online represent a fraction of the Museum’s collection. While new images are uploaded regularly, if a suitable high-quality image is not available to supply, it is also possible to commission digitisation of almost any object in the Museum. Our professional photographic studio can carry out a range of photographic services, including bespoke photography and ship plan scanning.

Read more about our services.

Lower resolution files at 72dpi can be used free of charge for non-commercial projects. Non-commercial is defined as not for sale or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation. 

See the full list and terms of image uses.

Our film archive is available for licensing. The growing collection features a diverse selection of archive footage sourced from documentaries, amateur and contemporary aerial footage of the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site. We also exclusively license the unique film archive by the mariner and photographer Alan Villiers, digitised films detailing sailing ships from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Our team can assist with footage research. Contact images@rmg.co.uk to license a clip or full film.

The breadth and historical nature of our collection, particularly relating to naval and maritime activity, spans a wide range of historical subjects and contemporary issues, often connecting the two. Users may find some historic images difficult and upsetting, however, they provide an essential resource for contextualising important and often disturbing episodes in global history.

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