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 “Head of a Buddha” — 64 records examined, 49 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-03 17:20 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.
Crowned Buddha

Crowned Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · 9th century

Public domainThe Met
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · 550-577

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · 550-577

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1500

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1500

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mantle Clock Supported by a Hotei ("Laughing Buddha"), by Mennecy Porcelain Manufactory, French, active 1735 – 1773

Mantle Clock Supported by a Hotei ("Laughing Buddha")

Mennecy Porcelain Manufactory, French, active 1735 – 1773 · 1740–45

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of the Buddha

Head of the Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · 8th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Eleven-headed Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Jūichimen Kannon)

Eleven-headed Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Jūichimen Kannon)

Artist not stated in the record · 13th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ornament Design with Seated Figure, by Alexis Peyrotte, French, 1699–1769

Ornament Design with Seated Figure

Alexis Peyrotte, French, 1699–1769 · mid- 18th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Historical Buddha Shakyamuni with the bodhisattvas Fugen (Samantabhadra) and Monju (Manjushri)

Historical Buddha Shakyamuni with the bodhisattvas Fugen (Samantabhadra) and Monju (Manjushri)

Artist not stated in the record · 15th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of the disciple Ananda

Head of the disciple Ananda

Artist not stated in the record · 550-577

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. 31520 matched · 24 examined · 23 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. 3871967 matched · 40 examined · 26 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 2026-09-03 17:20 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.