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. 12 shown for “Lawler's Patent Model of a Hot Water Heater - 1877” — 40 records examined, 19 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-05 17:15 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.
Lawler's Patent Model of a Hot Water Heater - 1877

Lawler's Patent Model of a Hot Water Heater - 1877

Artist not stated in the record · 1877-04-10

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ericsson Hot-Air Engine, Patent Model

Ericsson Hot-Air Engine, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Sturtevant’s Patent Model of a Heating and Ventilating Apparatus – ca 1870

Sturtevant’s Patent Model of a Heating and Ventilating Apparatus – ca 1870

Artist not stated in the record · ca 1870

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Stevens Steam-Engine Condenser, Patent Model

Stevens Steam-Engine Condenser, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1863

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Vera’s Patent Model of a Friction Heater – ca 1869

Vera’s Patent Model of a Friction Heater – ca 1869

Artist not stated in the record · 1869-01-19

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
McAvoy’s Patent Model of a Heat Regulator for Hot Water Apparatus - ca 1869

McAvoy’s Patent Model of a Heat Regulator for Hot Water Apparatus - ca 1869

Artist not stated in the record · 1869-07-27

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ericsson Hot-Air Engine, Patent Model

Ericsson Hot-Air Engine, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1880-03-30

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Colwell Disulphide of Carbon Generator and Engine, Patent Model

Colwell Disulphide of Carbon Generator and Engine, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1879

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Ericsson Air Engine, Patent Model

Ericsson Air Engine, Patent Model

Artist not stated in the record · 1858

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Adam’s Patent Model of a Stove Drum - ca 1868

Adam’s Patent Model of a Stove Drum - ca 1868

Artist not stated in the record · 1868-12-22

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mauzey’s Patent Model of a Solar Heater – 1880

Mauzey’s Patent Model of a Solar Heater – 1880

Artist not stated in the record · 1880

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Webster’s Patent Model of a Hot-Air Furnace - ca 1866

Webster’s Patent Model of a Hot-Air Furnace - ca 1866

Artist not stated in the record · ca 1866

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. The archive returned no records for this term.0 matched
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 3876502 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 2026-09-05 17:15 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.