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. 24 shown for “Unidentified artists” — 64 records examined, 2 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-30 00:21 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.
Illustrated manuscript of the Lotus Sutra (Miaofa lianhua jing), Volume 2, by Unidentified artist

Illustrated manuscript of the Lotus Sutra (Miaofa lianhua jing), Volume 2

Unidentified artist · ca. 1340

Public domainThe Met
Unidentified Man, by Unidentified Artist

Unidentified Man

Unidentified Artist · c. 1870

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Grapevine in the Wind, by Unidentified artist

Grapevine in the Wind

Unidentified artist · 16th century

Public domainThe Met
Alexander Próvost, by Unidentified Artist

Alexander Próvost

Unidentified Artist · c. 1850

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Portrait of Shun'oku Myōha, by Unidentified artist

Portrait of Shun'oku Myōha

Unidentified artist · ca. 1383

Public domainThe Met
John Hunt Morgan, by Unidentified Artist

John Hunt Morgan

Unidentified Artist · c. 1862

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Shakyamuni triad, by Unidentified artist

Shakyamuni triad

Unidentified artist · 1565

Public domainThe Met
Unidentified photographer in field, by Unidentified Artist

Unidentified photographer in field

Unidentified Artist · c. 1865

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Gathering of government officials, by Unidentified artist

Gathering of government officials

Unidentified artist · ca. 1551

Public domainThe Met
Unidentified photographer in field, by Unidentified Artist

Unidentified photographer in field

Unidentified Artist · c. 1865

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Brahma with Attendants and Musicians, by Unidentified artist

Brahma with Attendants and Musicians

Unidentified artist · late 16th century

Public domainThe Met
Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Rooms, by Unidentified Artist

Southworth & Hawes’ Daguerreotype Rooms

Unidentified Artist · c. 1848

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Portrait of the Great Master Seosan, by Unidentified artist

Portrait of the Great Master Seosan

Unidentified artist · late 17th–18th century

Public domainThe Met
Unidentified girl, by Unidentified Artist

Unidentified girl

Unidentified Artist · c. 1865

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Books and Scholars' Possessions, by Unidentified artist

Books and Scholars' Possessions

Unidentified artist · early 20th century

Public domainThe Met
Battle of Bull Run, by Unidentified Artist

Battle of Bull Run

Unidentified Artist · published August 10, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Grapevine and Squirrels, by Unidentified artist

Grapevine and Squirrels

Unidentified artist · early 19th century

Public domainThe Met
A. A. Turner Carte Holder Box and Advertisement, by Unidentified Artist

A. A. Turner Carte Holder Box and Advertisement

Unidentified Artist · c. 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara, by Unidentified artist

Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara

Unidentified artist · 14th century

Public domainThe Met
Alfred Waud carte album, by Unidentified Artist

Alfred Waud carte album

Unidentified Artist · c. 1860-70

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Emperor Xuanzong's flight to Shu, by Unidentified artist

Emperor Xuanzong's flight to Shu

Unidentified artist · mid-12th century

Public domainThe Met
Marcus Root Daguerreian Token, by Unidentified Artist

Marcus Root Daguerreian Token

Unidentified Artist · c. 1850

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Amitabha and Kshitigarba, by Unidentified artist

Amitabha and Kshitigarba

Unidentified artist · first half of the 14th century

Public domainThe Met
Olive Oatman, by Unidentified Artist

Olive Oatman

Unidentified Artist · c. 1856

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. 3292 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. 76735 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 2026-08-30 00:21 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.