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. 13 shown for “Matinée d'Hiver sur les Quais” — 41 records examined, 11 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-03 16:19 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.
Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque), by Georges Seurat

Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)

Georges Seurat · 1887–88

Public domainThe Met
Matinée d'Hiver sur les Quais

Matinée d'Hiver sur les Quais

Artist not stated in the record · 1877

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Entophysalis crustacea (J. Agardh) F.E. Drouet & W.A. Daily

Entophysalis crustacea (J. Agardh) F.E. Drouet & W.A. Daily

Artist not stated in the record · Apr May

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Avenella flexuosa (L.) Drejer

Avenella flexuosa (L.) Drejer

Artist not stated in the record · 28 Jun 1927

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Carex foenea Willd.

Carex foenea Willd.

Artist not stated in the record · 15 Jul 1925

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Title Page of "Le Grand Commerce ou Le Nouveau Lire Des Changes Estranges" by Bertrand-François Barrême (1640–1703)

Title Page of "Le Grand Commerce ou Le Nouveau Lire Des Changes Estranges" by Bertrand-François Barrême (1640–1703)

Artist not stated in the record · 1670–1700

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Salvinia natans (L.) All.

Salvinia natans (L.) All.

Artist not stated in the record · Oct 1950

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Calliandra hymenaeoides (Rich.) Benth.

Calliandra hymenaeoides (Rich.) Benth.

Artist not stated in the record · 27 Mar 2001

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Jardin d'Hiver, by Jules Desfossé, French, active 1851 - 1863

Jardin d'Hiver

Jules Desfossé, French, active 1851 - 1863 · 1853

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers.

Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers.

Artist not stated in the record · 8 Aug 1936

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Anemia adiantifolia (L.) Sw.

Anemia adiantifolia (L.) Sw.

Artist not stated in the record · 1895

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Erigeron diplopappoides S. Schauer

Erigeron diplopappoides S. Schauer

Artist not stated in the record · 27 Jul 1878

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Equisetum arvense var. boreale (Bong.) Rupr.

Equisetum arvense var. boreale (Bong.) Rupr.

Artist not stated in the record · 28 Jun 1927

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. 1 matched · 1 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.1 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 69535 matched · 40 examined · 11 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 2026-09-03 16:19 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.