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. 19 shown for “Knife and Fork with Sheath” — 64 records examined, 31 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 19:05 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.
Knife and Fork with Sheath

Knife and Fork with Sheath

Artist not stated in the record · 18th century

Public domainThe Met
Knife with Agate Handle

Knife with Agate Handle

Artist not stated in the record · 1675–1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fork

Fork

Artist not stated in the record · 15th century

Public domainThe Met
Sharkskin Sheath for Agate-handled Knife and Fork

Sharkskin Sheath for Agate-handled Knife and Fork

Artist not stated in the record · 1675–1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Imperial Knife with Sheath

Imperial Knife with Sheath

Artist not stated in the record · 18th century

Public domainThe Met
Two-tined Fork with Agate Handle

Two-tined Fork with Agate Handle

Artist not stated in the record · 1675–1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Fork, by Nicolas Collier

Fork

Nicolas Collier · 1769–70

Public domainThe Met
Traveling Cutlery Set with Antler Handle

Traveling Cutlery Set with Antler Handle

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1780–1820

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Case for Knife and Fork (Part of Traveling Cutlery Set)

Case for Knife and Fork (Part of Traveling Cutlery Set)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Kris with Sheath

Kris with Sheath

Artist not stated in the record · 16th–19th century

Public domainThe Met
Serving Knife

Serving Knife

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

Public domainThe Met
Serving Knife

Serving Knife

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

Public domainThe Met
Knife

Knife

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1650

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Hunting Sword with Scabbard, Knife, and Fork

Hunting Sword with Scabbard, Knife, and Fork

Artist not stated in the record · blade dated 1656

Public domainThe Met
Knife

Knife

Artist not stated in the record · early 17th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Hunting Knife with a Set of Implements (Trousse)

Hunting Knife with a Set of Implements (Trousse)

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1570

Public domainThe Met
Knife

Knife

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1870–80

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Knife (Kukri) with Sheath, Two Small Knives and Pouch

Knife (Kukri) with Sheath, Two Small Knives and Pouch

Artist not stated in the record · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Knife (Kukri) with Sheath, Two Small Knives and Pouch

Knife (Kukri) with Sheath, Two Small Knives and Pouch

Artist not stated in the record · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
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. 192 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. 1546241 matched · 40 examined · 29 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.11 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-01 19:05 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.