Perhaps of interest to this sub-thread is "IIIF" (the international image interoperability framework), an attempt to standardize access to images (and collections of images) with a JSON(-LD) metadata model: http://iiif.io/
RE: IIIF, we're interested in going in that direction as well. Fortunately it looks like someone already wrote a plugin for it: https://github.com/mejackreed/Leaflet-IIIF
PS - Hey Kjell! This is Eric from the Getty. It's nice to see there are other museum folks on HN!
Yep - I figured based on the projects, but didn't want to call out your real ID in case that mattered. Lunch out on your plaza sounds pretty appealing right now compared to the weather up here!
RE: IIIF, we're interested in going in that direction as well. Fortunately it looks like someone already wrote a plugin for it: https://github.com/mejackreed/Leaflet-IIIF
PS - Hey Kjell! This is Eric from the Getty. It's nice to see there are other museum folks on HN!