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 “Leptothorax yankee var. kincaidi” — 40 records examined, 22 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-06 17:54 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.
Leptothorax yankee var. kincaidi

Leptothorax yankee var. kincaidi

Artist not stated in the record · 4 Jun 1899 to Jun 1899

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax nitens var. heathii

Leptothorax nitens var. heathii

Artist not stated in the record · [Not Stated]

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax rugatulus var. cockerelli

Leptothorax rugatulus var. cockerelli

Artist not stated in the record · 23 Feb 1902

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax nitens var. mariposa

Leptothorax nitens var. mariposa

Artist not stated in the record · 14 Jul 1915

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax angustulus algiricus var. brunea

Leptothorax angustulus algiricus var. brunea

Artist not stated in the record · [Not Stated]

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax nigrita var. rupestris

Leptothorax nigrita var. rupestris

Artist not stated in the record · [Not Stated]

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax rugatulus var. mediorufus

Leptothorax rugatulus var. mediorufus

Artist not stated in the record · [Not Stated]

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Leptothorax tuberum obsurior var. nitidulus

Leptothorax tuberum obsurior var. nitidulus

Artist not stated in the record · [Not Stated]

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Holodiscus discolor var. microphyllus (Rydb.) Jeps.

Holodiscus discolor var. microphyllus (Rydb.) Jeps.

Artist not stated in the record · 1 Aug 1895

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Monarda fistulosa var. mollis (L.) L.

Monarda fistulosa var. mollis (L.) L.

Artist not stated in the record · 9 Aug 1923

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Solidago canadensis var. salebrosa (Piper) M.E. Jones

Solidago canadensis var. salebrosa (Piper) M.E. Jones

Artist not stated in the record · 1 Aug 1895

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Veronica peregrina var. xalapensis Kunth

Veronica peregrina var. xalapensis Kunth

Artist not stated in the record · 2 Aug 1895

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. 225751 matched · 40 examined · 22 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 2026-09-06 17:54 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.