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 “Double Capital with Masks and Birds” — 40 records examined, 8 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-02 19:19 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.

Six capitals of columns, one of a pillar, with alternative suggestions

Six capitals of columns, one of a pillar, with alternative suggestions

Artist not stated in the record · 1780–1800

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ornament Designs, by Jean Bérain, the elder, French, 1640 – 1711

Ornament Designs

Jean Bérain, the elder, French, 1640 – 1711 · ca.1670–ca.1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Decorative Frame; verso: Frieze with Pageant

Decorative Frame; verso: Frieze with Pageant

Artist not stated in the record · early 17th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Decoration d'une Porte à placards, traittée dans le même gout que la precedente., by Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742

Decoration d'une Porte à placards, traittée dans le même gout que la precedente.

Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742 · 1686-1742

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Snuff Box

Snuff Box

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1750

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Design for a Surtout de Table, for State Porcelain Service of Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, by Gaetano Lodi, Italian, 1830 – 1886

Design for a Surtout de Table, for State Porcelain Service of Ismail, Khedive of Egypt

Gaetano Lodi, Italian, 1830 – 1886 · 1873–76

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Profil de deux Venteaux de la porte Cochere, by François de Cuvilliés the Elder, Belgian, 1695 - 1768

Profil de deux Venteaux de la porte Cochere

François de Cuvilliés the Elder, Belgian, 1695 - 1768 · 18th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fragment

Fragment

Artist not stated in the record · 700–900

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Double Goblet, after Altdorfer

Double Goblet, after Altdorfer

Artist not stated in the record · 1528–1563

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Design for a Chimneypiece

Design for a Chimneypiece

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1800

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Decorative Frame; verso: Frieze with Playing Children

Decorative Frame; verso: Frieze with Playing Children

Artist not stated in the record · 1600–1625

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Double Goblet, from the series Allerley Gebuntznierte Fisirungen, by Stephan Hermann, German, active 1568 - 1596

Double Goblet, from the series Allerley Gebuntznierte Fisirungen

Stephan Hermann, German, active 1568 - 1596 · 1581, published 1584

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. 2083501 matched · 40 examined · 8 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 19:19 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.