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 “Head of an official” — 64 records examined, 22 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-28 02:43 UTC · served from cache, not re-queried 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.
Head of an Official

Head of an Official

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Absentee ballot interior return envelope

Absentee ballot interior return envelope

Artist not stated in the record · 1944

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of an Official

Head of an Official

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Artist not stated in the record · 1981

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of an official

Head of an official

Artist not stated in the record · 400–200 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Head of a Buddha

Head of a Buddha

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1500

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head, by Temne or Bullom artist(s)

Head

Temne or Bullom artist(s) · 12th–16th century

Public domainThe Met
Anatomical Sketches of Heads and Facial Expressions, by Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900

Anatomical Sketches of Heads and Facial Expressions

Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900 · 1877–80

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bust of an Official

Bust of an Official

Artist not stated in the record · 380–343 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Artist not stated in the record · 2010

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Court official from a commemorative altar, by Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists

Court official from a commemorative altar

Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists · 16th–17th century

Public domainThe Met
The Sentry, by Dunn, Harvey Thomas

The Sentry

Dunn, Harvey Thomas · 1918

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ùhúnmwèlaò (head of an ọ́bà), by Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists

Ùhúnmwèlaò (head of an ọ́bà)

Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists · Early 15th–mid-16th century

Public domainThe Met
Anatomical Sketches of Heads, Faces, and Eyes, by Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900

Anatomical Sketches of Heads, Faces, and Eyes

Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900 · probably 1865–1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ùhúnmwèlaò (head of an ọ́bà), by Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists

Ùhúnmwèlaò (head of an ọ́bà)

Ìgùn Ẹ́rọ̀nwwọ̀n (brass-casting guild) artists · Mid-16th–late 17th century

Public domainThe Met
Ute Delegation, by Mathew Brady Studio, active 1844 - 1894

Ute Delegation

Mathew Brady Studio, active 1844 - 1894 · 1868

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bust of a Bodhisattva

Bust of a Bodhisattva

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 4th–5th century

Public domainThe Met
Head of an Elderly Bearded Man

Head of an Elderly Bearded Man

Artist not stated in the record · 1800–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of an Old Woman, by Orazio Borgianni

Head of an Old Woman

Orazio Borgianni · after 1610

Public domainThe Met
Head of an Elderly Bearded Man

Head of an Elderly Bearded Man

Artist not stated in the record · 1800–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Artist not stated in the record · second half of the 7th century

Public domainThe Met
Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Pearl Harbor Survivors Official Membership Card for Ck2c George F. Bland

Artist not stated in the record · 1991

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Bird Head

Bird Head

Artist not stated in the record · Date unknown

Public domainThe Met
Anatomical Sketches of Heads, by Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900

Anatomical Sketches of Heads

Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900 · probably 1865–75

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. 10856 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. 2891059 matched · 40 examined · 19 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 2026-08-28 02:43 UTC, replayed here rather than repeated. 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.