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. 15 shown for “Terracotta bird” — 64 records examined, 38 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 07:06 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.
Terracotta bird

Terracotta bird

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 600–480 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Noh robe

Noh robe

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1800

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta krater, by Hirschfeld Workshop

Terracotta krater

Hirschfeld Workshop · ca. 750–735 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Architectural panels from the Western Methodist Book Concern Building, Chicago, Illinois (Harry B. Wheelock, architect), by Northwestern Terra Cotta, USA

Architectural panels from the Western Methodist Book Concern Building, Chicago, Illinois (Harry B. Wheelock, architect)

Northwestern Terra Cotta, USA · ca. 1899

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), by Bird Painter

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Bird Painter · ca. 420 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Western Methodist Book Concern Building, Chicago, Illinois (Harry Bergen Wheelock, architect), by Northwestern Terra Cotta, USA

Western Methodist Book Concern Building, Chicago, Illinois (Harry Bergen Wheelock, architect)

Northwestern Terra Cotta, USA · ca. 1899

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water), by Group of Boston 00.348

Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)

Group of Boston 00.348 · ca. 360–350 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta jug in the form of a bird

Terracotta jug in the form of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 330–300 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta vase in the form of a bird

Terracotta vase in the form of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 620–590 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta statuette of woman with bird face

Terracotta statuette of woman with bird face

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1450–1200 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta vase in the form of a bird

Terracotta vase in the form of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · mid-7th century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta askos (flask with a spout and handle over the top) in the form of a bird

Terracotta askos (flask with a spout and handle over the top) in the form of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · 1200–1050 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta askos (flask with a spout and handle over the top) in the form of a bird

Terracotta askos (flask with a spout and handle over the top) in the form of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · 750–600 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta vase in the shape of a bird

Terracotta vase in the shape of a bird

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 600–550 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) with a bird

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) with a bird

Artist not stated in the record · 4th century BCE

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. 304 matched · 24 examined · 1 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. 576860 matched · 40 examined · 37 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.3 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-01 07:06 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.