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. 13 shown for “F. Beale & Co.” — 19 records examined, 2 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 11:11 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.
Upright Harp Piano, by F. Beale & Co.

Upright Harp Piano

F. Beale & Co. · 1843

Public domainThe Met
Vulpia microstachys var. pauciflora (Scribn. ex W.J. Beal) Lonard & Gould

Vulpia microstachys var. pauciflora (Scribn. ex W.J. Beal) Lonard & Gould

Artist not stated in the record

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Muhlenbergia porteri Scribn. in W.J. Beal

Muhlenbergia porteri Scribn. in W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · Jun 1882

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Miscanthus sinensis var. zebrinus Beal

Miscanthus sinensis var. zebrinus Beal

Artist not stated in the record · Transcribed d/m/y: 27/9/64

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 2 May 1908

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 21 Mar 1936

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 29 Mar 1935

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca versuta W.J. Beal

Festuca versuta W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 25 Jun 1941

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca versuta W.J. Beal

Festuca versuta W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 19 Jun 1939

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Philonotis fontana f. tenuis Flowers

Philonotis fontana f. tenuis Flowers

Artist not stated in the record · 22 Nov 1927

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Eragrostis erosa Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Eragrostis erosa Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 2 Oct 1944

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Piptochaetium pringlei (W.J. Beal) Parodi

Piptochaetium pringlei (W.J. Beal) Parodi

Artist not stated in the record · 4 Jun 1946

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Festuca microstachys var. pauciflora Scribn. ex W.J. Beal

Artist not stated in the record · 28 Aug 1901

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. 3 matched · 3 examined · 2 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.1 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 16 matched · 16 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 11:11 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.