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. 24 shown for “Container with Figures under an Arcade” — 64 records examined, 7 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-05 10:11 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.
Mantel clock with musical movement, by Jean-Baptiste-André Furet

Mantel clock with musical movement

Jean-Baptiste-André Furet · ca. 1784

Public domainThe Met
Christ and the adulterous woman

Christ and the adulterous woman

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1800

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Container with Figures under an Arcade

Container with Figures under an Arcade

Artist not stated in the record · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Aduno Koro (Ark of the World) vessel with ancestral figures, by Dogon blacksmith

Aduno Koro (Ark of the World) vessel with ancestral figures

Dogon blacksmith · 16th–19th century

Public domainThe Met
Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Standing Figure with Jeweled Headdress

Standing Figure with Jeweled Headdress

Artist not stated in the record · 12th–early 13th century

Public domainThe Met
Stage Design: Stairway Leading to an Obelisk, a Triumphal Arch, and an Arcade

Stage Design: Stairway Leading to an Obelisk, a Triumphal Arch, and an Arcade

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1720

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Woman from the French Colonies, by Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier

Woman from the French Colonies

Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier · 1861

Public domainThe Met
Textile

Textile

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1789

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
The Rape of Europa and Mercury and the Three Graces, by Lambertus Vrythoff

The Rape of Europa and Mercury and the Three Graces

Lambertus Vrythoff · case ca. 1645, movement ca. 1750

Public domainThe Met
Plate in Nouveaux Livre de Paysages (New Book of Landscapes), by Daniel Marot, French, active in the Netherlands and England, 1661–1752

Plate in Nouveaux Livre de Paysages (New Book of Landscapes)

Daniel Marot, French, active in the Netherlands and England, 1661–1752 · ca. 1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Poporo (lime container) with female figures, by Quimbaya artist(s)

Poporo (lime container) with female figures

Quimbaya artist(s) · 1–600 CE

Public domainThe Met
Christ Healing Paralytics near the Pool of Bethesda, by Jan van der Straet, called Stradanus, Flemish, 1523–1605

Christ Healing Paralytics near the Pool of Bethesda

Jan van der Straet, called Stradanus, Flemish, 1523–1605 · ca. 1580–1605

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Buddha Maitreya (Mile)

Buddha Maitreya (Mile)

Artist not stated in the record · dated 486 (10th year of Taihe reign)

Public domainThe Met
Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct, by Théodore Géricault

Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct

Théodore Géricault · 1818

Public domainThe Met
Study for a Procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a Procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bodhisattva (Maitreya) with crossed ankles

Bodhisattva (Maitreya) with crossed ankles

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 470–80

Public domainThe Met
Priest's Son, Syria, by Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900

Priest's Son, Syria

Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900 · April 1868

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
The Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future

The Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future

Artist not stated in the record · 11th century

Public domainThe Met
Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Wall clock (cartel), by Etienne LeNoir

Wall clock (cartel)

Etienne LeNoir · ca. 1735–40

Public domainThe Met
Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY, by Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903

Study for a procession, “Vintage Festival,” Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, NY

Robert Frederick Blum, American, 1857–1903 · 1895–1898

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. 4104 matched · 24 examined · 3 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.12 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 396133 matched · 40 examined · 4 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 2026-09-05 10:11 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.