kuvastosta

Kuvastosta is a Finnish linguistic form meaning “from the picture gallery” or “from the image collection.” It is the elative case of kuvasto, a noun that refers to a gallery or organized collection of images, such as drawings, prints, photographs, or other visual material. In museum catalogs, bibliographies, and metadata, kuvastosta is used to indicate provenance or source material, i.e., that an item originates from a specific image collection.

Etymology and form: Kuvasto is built from kuva- meaning image or picture and -sto indicating a collection or repository. The suffix -sta marks the elative case, which expresses origin or source. Thus kuvastosta literally means “from the kuvasto.”

Usage: In practice, writers often pair kuvastosta with a more specific reference, or use the genitive form kuvaston to indicate a particular collection (for example, kuvaston kokoelmat denotes the collection of a named kuvasto). The term commonly appears in catalog entries, exhibition wall texts, and digitization workflows to denote where the item was derived. Because it is a general term, more precise sources are usually named for clarity.

See also: kuvasto, kuvakokoelma, museologia, provenance, archive and museum terminology.