Virtual Backgrounds from the Library Collections

Customizing your Zoom backgrounds are a great way to add a bit of personality to your meetings, protect privacy if you're not interested in showing your home environment, or simply have a little fun. We've pulled some images from the Library's collections that you can use as your own Zoom background. Many show the Georgetown campus if you're missing the Hilltop, while a few are notable works of art, some of which depict world-famous landmarks. Select any image below to learn more about it and download a high-resolution version.

A black and white photograph from what is now Copley lawn looking south circa 1900, with Healy Hall and Old North in the background. Players in uniform are playing a baseball game, with a player at bat but no one on base. Detail from an oil painting of Georgetown College from Trinity Steeple looking west, by James Alexander Simpson, 1831. Only two buildings are pictured, Old North and Old South, along with a handball court. A line of trees and a fence separate the buildings from what is now Healy Lawn, where several cattle are grazing. Detail from a black and white photograph of Copley Formal Lounge, in 1944. About twenty members of the Allied Services Training Program, in military uniform stand or sit in upholstered chairs and converse with each other while sunlight streams in from a south-facing window. Detail of a woodblock print by Yoshijiro Urushibara entitled The Resting Place (Scutari) from 1924, showing people wrapped in colorful shawls visiting a cemetery in the shade of tall trees along the shore of the Bosphorus. A black and white photograph from the Healy lawn looking North circa 1950. White-Gravenor Hall is in the background with the statue of John Carroll behind two men in conversation, one seated on a bench and the other standing with a tennis racquet. Detail of an etching, View of Amsterdam from the Northwest, by Rembrandt, circa 1640. This rough sketch of the city's waterfont shows a windmill and several steeples, as several people walk along the riverbank. Detail from a mezzotint with etching entitled The Creation, by John Martin from 1838. Waters and clouds swirl above an ocean, with planet and stars above, and a shaft of light piercing the clouds. Detail from a micromosaic of Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican, by Biagio Barzotti circa 1880. Crowds of people are depecited in Saint Peter's Square, along with several horse drawn carriages. Detail from a black and white photograph of Riggs Library looking towards the main entrance, circa 1910. The two stories of the steel stacks are visible in the background, full of books, while in the foreground a stand for large atlases and dictionaries stands across from an ornate table with four similarly ornate wooden chairs. Detail from a photograph of Carrol Parlor, an art gallery formerly housed in Healy Hall, taken in 2011. The view looks towards the southeast corner of the room, where a large oil painting of Elizabeth Dhalgren hangs on the wall, and several statutes of marble and bronze rest on pedestals and the window sill. The artwork is interspersed with ornatedly carved wooden furniture, a round table and chest as well as several chairs with intricate needlework decorating the upholstery. Detail from an etching entitled Carcere (Prison) by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, circa 1835, showing a cavernous shadowy room, looking upward at numerous stone archways, support beams, and large chandeliers, along with several doorways blocked off with prison bars. Human figures, sketched with minimal detail, toil on stairways and on top of archways, lifting baskets with pulleys. Detail from an oil painting by John Morrell from 1993, of the C&O Canal and towpath in Georgetown as it passes under an arch of the Key Bridge. A sunny day is depicted, as trees lush with leaves cast the towpath in shade and the sky is reflected off the water of the canal.

 

Learn how to install a background image in Zoom's Help Center.