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. 22 shown for “Fire tong” — 64 records examined, 30 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-29 07:22 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.
Fire tong

Fire tong

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1775

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Le Desarroi, by Beaublé fils, French, 1773 - 1819

Le Desarroi

Beaublé fils, French, 1773 - 1819 · 1810–1815

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Tongs

Tongs

Artist not stated in the record · 1795–1815

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Iron fire-tongs

Iron fire-tongs

Artist not stated in the record · late 4th or early 3rd century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Title Page, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Title Page

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire Tongs

Fire Tongs

Artist not stated in the record · 1770–1830

Public domainThe Met
Title Page, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Title Page

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire Tongs

Fire Tongs

Artist not stated in the record · 1770–1800

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire Tongs

Fire Tongs

Artist not stated in the record · 1770–1830

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire iron holder (one of a pair) (part of a set)

Fire iron holder (one of a pair) (part of a set)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1730–60

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire iron holder (one of a pair) (part of a set)

Fire iron holder (one of a pair) (part of a set)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1730–60

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire Tongs

Fire Tongs

Artist not stated in the record · 1770–1830

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fire Lighter or Coal Tong

Fire Lighter or Coal Tong

Artist not stated in the record · 15th–16th century

Public domainThe Met
Design for an Andiron, by Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676

Design for an Andiron

Jean Cotelle, French, 1607–1676 · 1622-1676

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. 32 matched · 24 examined · 2 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. 12987 matched · 40 examined · 28 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 2026-08-29 07:22 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.