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. 18 shown for “String of Short Cylindrical Beads” — 64 records examined, 36 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-28 14:32 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.
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Beaded coat made by Ann Lowe, by Ann Lowe, American, 1898 - 1981

Beaded coat made by Ann Lowe

Ann Lowe, American, 1898 - 1981 · early 1960s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Beads

Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Venetian glass trade beads, by Unidentified

Venetian glass trade beads

Unidentified · 18th to 20th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Costume worn by Flip Wilson as Geraldine, by William "Bill" Lewis Belew, American, 1931 - 2008

Costume worn by Flip Wilson as Geraldine

William "Bill" Lewis Belew, American, 1931 - 2008 · 1972

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Woodcarving of a slave trader with enslaved female figure, by Unidentified

Woodcarving of a slave trader with enslaved female figure

Unidentified · 19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cream sequin and beaded top, by Unidentified

Cream sequin and beaded top

Unidentified · late 1950s-1960s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
String of Short Cylindrical Beads

String of Short Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1386–1347 BCE

Public domainThe Met
String of Cylindrical Beads

String of Cylindrical Beads

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1550–1295 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
String of 3 amulets and 1 cylindrical bead

String of 3 amulets and 1 cylindrical bead

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1850–1750 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Elements from a Necklace

Elements from a Necklace

Artist not stated in the record · late 15th–16th century

Public domainThe Met
String of cylindrical beads

String of cylindrical beads

Artist not stated in the record · 30 BCE–364 CE

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. 37 matched · 24 examined · 2 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. 2867463 matched · 40 examined · 34 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.6 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-28 14:32 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.