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Collection data APIs

Purpose

Welcome to the NG Beta API, which has been set-up to allow direct access to structured, linkable data describing the National Gallery Collection. The raw data has initially been provided in the form of a basic json array. Once completed, data mapped to the CIDOC CRM, providing a standard semantic presentation of the data, will also be provided in a range of relevant formats.

These web pages have been set up to provide examples of how the system works in a human readable form, but the system is generally designed to be called directly by other computer systems.

The data provided by this API is released subject to a set of licences; see Help for further details.

Basic URL Format - NG API

NG data URLs take the form:

namespace/AAAA-AAAA-AAAA-AAAA

where:

  • The namespace is:
  • A is any alphanumeric character, uppercase letter and numbers, and together they represent a unique NG PID.
    • Initially we will be using 16 characters: which will allow for 3616 possibilities PIDs.
    • The system has been built to allow additional sets of 4 characters to be added to scale the number further if required.
  • The search option, provided on this page can be used to find NG PIDs based on names, titles, inventory numbers, etc.