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 “Postmaster William W. Johnson Owney tag” — 42 records examined, 0 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 03:46 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.
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques Louis David

The Death of Socrates

Jacques Louis David · 1787

Public domainThe Met
Postmaster William W. Johnson Owney tag

Postmaster William W. Johnson Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · c. 1890-1894

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Mrs. Richard Bache (Sarah Franklin, 1743–1808), by John Hoppner

Mrs. Richard Bache (Sarah Franklin, 1743–1808)

John Hoppner · 1793

Public domainThe Met
Plymouth, New Hampshire Owney tag

Plymouth, New Hampshire Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · May 5, 1896

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Hotel Fife Owney tag

Hotel Fife Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Pierre, South Dakota Owney tag

Pierre, South Dakota Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · April 25, 1896

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Hotel Fife Owney tag

Hotel Fife Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Sanborn, Iowa Owney tag

Sanborn, Iowa Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · c. 1890-1896

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
J. R. Monfort & Co. luggage Owney tag

J. R. Monfort & Co. luggage Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Charleston, West Virginia Owney tag

Charleston, West Virginia Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Alfred V. Friedrich luggage Owney tag

Alfred V. Friedrich luggage Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway Owney tag

Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Paxton Hotel Owney tag

Paxton Hotel Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · 1888-1897

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Tilton, New Hampshire Owney tag

Tilton, New Hampshire Owney tag

Artist not stated in the record · May 2, 1896

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. 2 matched · 2 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.2 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 1077413 matched · 40 examined · 0 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 2026-09-01 03:46 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.