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. 23 shown for “Utagawa Kuniyoshi” — 64 records examined, 29 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-28 02:17 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.
Minakuchi, Ishibe, Kusatsu, Otsu, Kyoto, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Minakuchi, Ishibe, Kusatsu, Otsu, Kyoto

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 1840

Public domainThe Met
Street scene: a procession, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1798-1861)

Street scene: a procession

Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1798-1861) · 1797-1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Oiso, Odawara, Hakone, Mishima, Numazu, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Oiso, Odawara, Hakone, Mishima, Numazu

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 1840

Public domainThe Met
Two symbolic figures (Kuniyoshi), by Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1798-1861)

Two symbolic figures (Kuniyoshi)

Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 (1798-1861) · 1797-1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
The Poet's Cabin in Tatsumi, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

The Poet's Cabin in Tatsumi

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 1845

Public domainThe Met
Geisha

Geisha

Artist not stated in the record · 1855

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Travelling in a Snowstorm, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Travelling in a Snowstorm

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · ca. 1830

Public domainThe Met
Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets, by Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832

Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets

Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832 · 1805–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Asakusa Imado, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Asakusa Imado

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · ca. 1840

Public domainThe Met
Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets, by Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832

Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets

Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832 · 1805–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Picture of Mitsumata, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Picture of Mitsumata

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 1797–1861

Public domainThe Met
The actor Yae Misazo

The actor Yae Misazo

Artist not stated in the record · 1858

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Part of a triptych: man with a parasol

Part of a triptych: man with a parasol

Artist not stated in the record · 1854

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Chokichi, "the untamed horse"

Chokichi, "the untamed horse"

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1850

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets, by Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832

Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets

Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832 · 1805–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
The actor Igoro Sawai

The actor Igoro Sawai

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1850

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

Public domainThe Met
Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets, by Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832

Pentaptych: Five girls with theater puppets

Utagawa Kuniyasu, Japanese, 1794 – 1832 · 1805–20

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Print, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Print

Utagawa Kuniyoshi · 19th century

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. 102 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. 339 matched · 40 examined · 29 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.11 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-28 02:17 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.