Importing Artworks

In Bristol, an artwork is the combination of a picture and the following set of properties:

• a name
• a type: flat or volume ? Flat artworks are hung on walls (paintings, prints, photographs). Volume artworks stand on the floor (sculptures, installations).
• a set of dimensions: width, height, and depth
• an inventory id (optional)

You can either import pictures and set these properties by hand, or use a CSV file to provide the data upfront.

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CSV Import

Examples

The following CSV files all produce the same two artworks in Bristol — a 40 × 40 × 40 cm sculpture and a 105.5 × 105.5 × 3 cm painting:

Inventory Id	Title	Type	Height	Width	Depth
3424	Horse	Volume	40cm	40cm	40cm
3425	Black Circle	Flat	105.5cm	105.5cm	3cm

Show alternatives

Column aliases

Stock Number	Name	Artwork Type	H	W	D
3424	Horse	3D	40cm	40cm	40cm
3425	Black Circle	2D	105.5cm	105.5cm	3cm

Unit column (mm)

Reference	Title	Type	Height	Width	Thickness	Unit
3424	Horse	Volume	400	400	400	mm
3425	Black Circle	Flat	1055	1055	30	mm

Dimensions string

Inventory_Id	Title	Type	Dimensions
3424	Horse	Volume	40 × 40 × 40 cm
3425	Black Circle	Flat	105.5 × 105.5 × 3 cm

Meters

Id	Artwork	Type	Height	Width	Depth
3424	Horse	3D	0.4m	0.4m	0.4m
3425	Black Circle	2D	1.055m	1.055m	0.03m

Medium detection

Stock_Number	Title	Medium	Height	Width	Depth
3424	Horse	Sculpture	40cm	40cm	40cm
3425	Black Circle	Oil on canvas	105.5cm	105.5cm	3cm

Mixed units

Inventory Id	Title	Type	Height	Width	Depth
3424	Horse	Volume	400mm	0.4m	400mm
3425	Black Circle	Flat	1055mm	105.5cm	30mm

Compact dimensions

Ref	Work	Type	Dimensions
3424	Horse	Volume	40x40x40cm
3425	Black Circle	Flat	105.5x105.5x3cm

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Parsing

Bristol property	Accepted column names	Details
Inventory ID	Inventory ID, Stock Number, Inventory, Ref, Reference, ID	Used to match image files to rows — name your images with the inventory number (e.g. AB-1234.jpg) for automatic matching.
Name	Name, Title, Artwork, Work
Type	Type, Artwork Type	Accepted values: Flat / 2D or Volume / 3D. When absent, Bristol tries to detect the type from the Medium column. Default: Flat.
Width	Width, W	When missing, dimensions default to 100 × 100 × 3 cm.
Height	Height, H
Depth	Depth, D, Thickness

Units

A unit suffix on a value (e.g. 1500mm, 59 in) is always used first. Otherwise, a Unit column sets the unit for the entire row (mm, cm, m, in, ft). When neither is provided, values are assumed to be in centimeters.

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Alternative columns

Column	Also accepted	Details
Dimensions	Size, Sizes	A single combined column as an alternative to separate Width/Height/Depth columns. Expected format: 100 × 80 × 5 cm (Height × Width × Depth). Individual columns take priority if both are present.
Unit	Units, Unit System	Sets the unit for the entire row. See the Units note above.
Medium	Materials, Technique	Used to auto-detect the artwork type when no Type column is present. Keywords like sculpture, ceramic, bronze, installation, or glass set the type to Volume.

Image matching

Images are matched to artworks based on their inventory ID.

When you import a CSV alongside images, Bristol looks for the inventory number in each image filename. A file matches if its name contains the inventory number — for example, an artwork with inventory number AB-1234 will match AB-1234.jpg, AB-1234_front.png, or photo_AB-1234.jpeg.

Tip

If your .zip archive or image folder has the same name as your CSV file (e.g. gallery-export.csv and gallery-export.zip), Bristol will find and load the images automatically.