If you’re anything like me, you collect wallpapers for your computer and devices that are either full on fantasy, or fantasy-inspiring, like The Beeches, above.

The Met has opened up a digital archive of images of artwork and museum-quality pieces of history, giving them Creative Commons licenses, which means they can be copied and used freely.

Just browsing through the collection is fascinating, because it’s not just pictures of pictures.   The high quality images are snapshots of different places and times — including a woman’s earring from Byzantine Constantinople that doesn’t look all too different from modern jewelry.

Have a browse.  [link]