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. 14 shown for “Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi e-den)” — 44 records examined, 30 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-09 00:35 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.
Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi e-den)

Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi e-den)

Artist not stated in the record · 14th century

Public domainThe Met
Proceedings of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge Free and Accepted Masons of Massachusetts Located at Boston 1904 December (Third Tuesday)

Proceedings of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge Free and Accepted Masons of Massachusetts Located at Boston 1904 December (Third Tuesday)

Artist not stated in the record · 1904

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi e-den)

Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi e-den)

Artist not stated in the record · 14th century

Public domainThe Met
Proceedings of the Special and Annual Communications of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, 1914-1915

Proceedings of the Special and Annual Communications of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, 1914-1915

Artist not stated in the record · 1916

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Prince Shōtoku at Age Sixteen, by Toba Sōjō

Prince Shōtoku at Age Sixteen

Toba Sōjō · 14th century

Public domainThe Met
The Little Executioner, illustration to John Evelyn, "Sculptura"

The Little Executioner, illustration to John Evelyn, "Sculptura"

Artist not stated in the record · 1662

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Shaka (Shakyamuni), the Historical Buddha, with Two Attendant Bodhisattvas and Sixteen Arhats

Shaka (Shakyamuni), the Historical Buddha, with Two Attendant Bodhisattvas and Sixteen Arhats

Artist not stated in the record · 14th century

Public domainThe Met
Coupe de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes, au Château de Versailles / Plan au rez-de-chaussée de l’Escalier de l’appartement des Princes, by Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742

Coupe de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes, au Château de Versailles / Plan au rez-de-chaussée de l’Escalier de l’appartement des Princes

Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742 · 1727–42

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Napkin

Napkin

Artist not stated in the record · 1710–50

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
The Tale of Genji, chapter 2: Prince Genji's visit to Utsusemi, by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1691)

The Tale of Genji, chapter 2: Prince Genji's visit to Utsusemi

Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1691) · 17th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Coupe de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes, au Château de Versailles / Plan du premier étage de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes, by Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742

Coupe de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes, au Château de Versailles / Plan du premier étage de l’Escalier de l’Appartement des Princes

Jean Mariette, French, 1660–1742 · 1727–42

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Masonic apron from the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, by Unidentified

Masonic apron from the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts

Unidentified · late 18th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Illustration Showing the Triumphal Return of the German Army After the German-French War, by Walter Shirlaw, American, b. Scotland, 1838–1909

Illustration Showing the Triumphal Return of the German Army After the German-French War

Walter Shirlaw, American, b. Scotland, 1838–1909 · ca. 1871

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Souvenir program for 1924 World's Colored Championship

Souvenir program for 1924 World's Colored Championship

Artist not stated in the record · 1924

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. 4 matched · 4 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.4 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 2902327 matched · 40 examined · 30 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.10 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-09 00:35 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.