OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
Images / art

Two archives, queried live.

Every record below comes from The Met or Smithsonian Open Access and was filtered on that archive’s own rights field before it reached this page. 12 shown for “Auguste Charles Pugin” — 40 records examined, 0 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 20:31 UTC · fetched live for this request

Object
Public domainThe Met’s isPublicDomain field is true for this object.
CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian’s metadata_usage.access reads CC0 — a waiver, not an expired term.
Not shownAnything failing its archive’s rights field is dropped server-side and never appears here.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: HTTP 403 from collectionapi.metmuseum.org. Results from the remaining archive are shown unchanged — nothing is substituted for a source that did not answer.

Sadlers Wells Theater from Ackermann's Repository, by Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827

Sadlers Wells Theater from Ackermann's Repository

Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827 · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Vauxhall Garden from Ackermann's Repository, by Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827

Vauxhall Garden from Ackermann's Repository

Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827 · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Royal Circus from Ackermann's Repository, by Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827

Royal Circus from Ackermann's Repository

Thomas Rowlandson, British, 1756–1827 · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Interior of the Drury Land Theater, London, by Augustus Charles Pugin, French, active Great Britain, ca. 1762–1832

Interior of the Drury Land Theater, London

Augustus Charles Pugin, French, active Great Britain, ca. 1762–1832 · 1808

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Synagogue, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Synagogue, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Water Engine, Coldbath Field's Prison, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Water Engine, Coldbath Field's Prison, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1808

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Westminster Abbey, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Westminster Abbey, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire in London, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Fire in London, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1808

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Greenwich Hospital, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Greenwich Hospital, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1810

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
House of Commons, from "Ackermann's Repository"

House of Commons, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1808

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Great Subscription Room at Brooks, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Great Subscription Room at Brooks, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1808

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Stamp Office, Somerset House, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Stamp Office, Somerset House, from "Ackermann's Repository"

Artist not stated in the record · 1809

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
What was queried

Where these records came from.

Two archives are wired, and only two. Each one is filtered on its own rights field — never on a title match, and never on the presence of an image file.

  • The Met Collection API (Open Access)Rights field: isPublicDomain. HTTP 403 from collectionapi.metmuseum.org. No records from this archive are shown for this query.Unavailable
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 143940 matched · 40 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.12 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-01 20:31 UTC, during this request. A completed pass is kept for 24 hours and replayed for an identical search, which is what keeps repeated queries inside Smithsonian’s 30-requests-per-hour allowance. A pass in which either archive failed to answer is never kept — an outage must not be replayed as though it were a finding about the catalogue.

Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress are deliberately not wired. Wikimedia was confirmed, on a live query, to return CC-BY material inside the same result set as genuine public domain works, and filtering it safely has not been designed yet. loc.gov was blocked by bot detection during the source evaluation, so its rights vocabulary has never been observed — and nothing here is built on a field nobody has read.

An image file is a rights claim. It never travels without its field.