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 “Terracotta head of an old woman” — 64 records examined, 35 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-28 06:25 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 head of an old woman

Terracotta head of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · 3rd–2nd century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Vecchia Contadina (Old Farm Woman), by Angelo Leone

Vecchia Contadina (Old Farm Woman)

Angelo Leone · after 1873

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta head of an old woman

Terracotta head of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · 2nd–1st century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Sheet of Studies: Self-portrait, a Beggar Couple, Heads of an Old Man and Old Woman, etc.

Sheet of Studies: Self-portrait, a Beggar Couple, Heads of an Old Man and Old Woman, etc.

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1632

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta head of an old woman

Terracotta head of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · 2nd–1st century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Newspaper clippings about Old Calabar

Newspaper clippings about Old Calabar

Artist not stated in the record · 1842-1845

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Marble statue of an old woman

Marble statue of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · 14–68 CE

Public domainThe Met
La Cuisiassa

La Cuisiassa

Artist not stated in the record · 18th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Head of an Old Woman, by Orazio Borgianni

Head of an Old Woman

Orazio Borgianni · after 1610

Public domainThe Met
A Reproach (Un Rimprovero)

A Reproach (Un Rimprovero)

Artist not stated in the record · 1874

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Cosmetic Spoon in the Shape of Swimming Woman Holding a Dish

Cosmetic Spoon in the Shape of Swimming Woman Holding a Dish

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

Public domainThe Met
Head of an Old Man

Head of an Old Man

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1788

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terracotta statuette of an emaciated woman

Terracotta statuette of an emaciated woman

Artist not stated in the record · 1st century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Fragment of a terracotta statuette of an old woman

Fragment of a terracotta statuette of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · 4th–3rd century BCE

Public domainThe Met
Terracotta head of a woman

Terracotta head of a woman

Artist not stated in the record · 3rd–2nd century BCE

Public domainThe Met
The Old Italian Woman, by Edgar Degas

The Old Italian Woman

Edgar Degas · 1857

Public domainThe Met
Estate Figure

Estate Figure

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1981–1975 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Marble head of an old woman

Marble head of an old woman

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1st century 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. 6052 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. 2907531 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 06:25 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.