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 “Chamaesiphon curvatus var. elongatus Nordstedt” — 40 records examined, 0 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-02 00:27 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.
Chamaesiphon curvatus var. elongatus Nordstedt

Chamaesiphon curvatus var. elongatus Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chamaesiphon curvatus Nordstedt

Chamaesiphon curvatus Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chamaesiphon gracilis f. elongatus N.Wille

Chamaesiphon gracilis f. elongatus N.Wille

Artist not stated in the record · 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chamaesiphon rostafinskii var. minor Hansg.

Chamaesiphon rostafinskii var. minor Hansg.

Artist not stated in the record · Apr 1887

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chamaesiphon fuscus var. auratus Hansg.

Chamaesiphon fuscus var. auratus Hansg.

Artist not stated in the record · 1891

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chamaesiphon roseus var. maior Hansg.

Chamaesiphon roseus var. maior Hansg.

Artist not stated in the record · 1891

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Oedogonium crassiusculum var. idioandrosporum Nordstedt & Wittr. in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Oedogonium crassiusculum var. idioandrosporum Nordstedt & Wittr. in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 28 Apr 1879

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mesotaenium chlamydosporum var. archeri forma minor Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Mesotaenium chlamydosporum var. archeri forma minor Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 18 Sep 1878

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mesotaenium endlicherianum var. grande Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Mesotaenium endlicherianum var. grande Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 4 Aug 1878

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Oedogonium wolleanum var. insigne Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Oedogonium wolleanum var. insigne Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 17 Sep 1878

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mesotaenium endlicherianum var. grande Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Mesotaenium endlicherianum var. grande Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 4 Aug 1878

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Penium phymatosporum var. majus Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Penium phymatosporum var. majus Nordstedt in Wittr. & Nordstedt

Artist not stated in the record · 3 Aug 1878

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. The archive returned no records for this term.0 matched
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 226837 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 2026-09-02 00:27 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.