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. 16 shown for “Scissors case” — 64 records examined, 36 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-02 07:49 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.
Scissors case

Scissors case

Artist not stated in the record · 17th century

Public domainThe Met
Scissors and case

Scissors and case

Artist not stated in the record · 1850–1890

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Scissors case

Scissors case

Artist not stated in the record · 17th century

Public domainThe Met
Ciseaux et Pomme de canne [Design for Scissors and Cane Handle, 3rd Plate], pl. 44 in Oeuvre de Juste-Aurele Meissonnier, by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, French, b. Italy, 1695–1750

Ciseaux et Pomme de canne [Design for Scissors and Cane Handle, 3rd Plate], pl. 44 in Oeuvre de Juste-Aurele Meissonnier

Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, French, b. Italy, 1695–1750 · 1748

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Étui

Étui

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1765–70

Public domainThe Met
Kit, First Aid, Mercury, Glenn, Friendship 7, by Unknown

Kit, First Aid, Mercury, Glenn, Friendship 7

Unknown

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Scissors (part of a set), by J. Hobson & Son, England

Scissors (part of a set)

J. Hobson & Son, England · 1848–49

Public domainThe Met
Oeuvre de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, French, b. Italy, 1695–1750

Oeuvre de Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier

Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, French, b. Italy, 1695–1750 · ca. 1730

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Scissors (part of a set), by J. Hobson & Son, England

Scissors (part of a set)

J. Hobson & Son, England · 1848–49

Public domainThe Met
Nose or mustache scissors (part of a set)

Nose or mustache scissors (part of a set)

Artist not stated in the record · 1848–49

Public domainThe Met
Nécessaire, by Tahan

Nécessaire

Tahan · ca. 1815

Public domainThe Met
Instrument Case, by Muhammad Baqir

Instrument Case

Muhammad Baqir · dated 1204 AH/1789 CE

Public domainThe Met
Architectural woodwork and paneling, by George A. Schastey & Co.

Architectural woodwork and paneling

George A. Schastey & Co. · 1881–82

Public domainThe Met
[Union Soldier and Barber], by Unknown

[Union Soldier and Barber]

Unknown · 1861–65

Public domainThe Met
Nécessaire

Nécessaire

Artist not stated in the record · mid-18th century

Public domainThe Met
Relief moulded metal plaque for sewing box, by Frédéric Charles Victor de Vernon

Relief moulded metal plaque for sewing box

Frédéric Charles Victor de Vernon · ca. 1900

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. 51 matched · 24 examined · 0 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. 20098 matched · 40 examined · 36 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.4 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-02 07:49 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.