The Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art in Washington, DC, are due to release their entire collections online on January 1, 2015. More than 40,000 works, from ancient Chinese jades to 13th-century Syrian metalwork and 19th-century Korans, will be accessible through high-resolution images without copyright restrictions for non-commercial use. The vast majority—nearly 35,000 objects—have never been seen by the public.

The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery are the first Smithsonian museums and the only Asian art museums to complete the labor-intensive process of digitizing and releasing their entire collections online.