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 “Watch chain and stud” — 64 records examined, 34 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-01 18:59 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.
Watch, by F. L. Meybom

Watch

F. L. Meybom · ca. 1670–75

Public domainThe Met
Watch chain and stud

Watch chain and stud

Artist not stated in the record · mid-19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Watch, by Pierre Vernede

Watch

Pierre Vernede · ca. 1650

Public domainThe Met
Lapel Watch, by Paulding Farnham, American, 1859 – 1927

Lapel Watch

Paulding Farnham, American, 1859 – 1927 · ca. 1889

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Watch, by W.A.

Watch

W.A. · 1571

Public domainThe Met
Watch, chain, and key

Watch, chain, and key

Artist not stated in the record · 1875–99

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Pair-case watch, by Thomas Tompion

Pair-case watch

Thomas Tompion · 1682–83

Public domainThe Met
Watch chain

Watch chain

Artist not stated in the record · mid-19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Repeating watch, by Francis Perigal

Repeating watch

Francis Perigal · probably ca. 1770

Public domainThe Met
Pocket watch and chain owned by Terrell family, by Unidentified

Pocket watch and chain owned by Terrell family

Unidentified · 1863-1954

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Watch case, by George Harrison

Watch case

George Harrison · probably ca. 1770

Public domainThe Met
Watch chain

Watch chain

Artist not stated in the record · mid-19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Pair-case quarter-repeating watch, by John Champion

Pair-case quarter-repeating watch

John Champion · ca. 1770–72

Public domainThe Met
Watch Chain and Ring

Watch Chain and Ring

Artist not stated in the record · 1820–50

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Watch, by Charles Bobinet

Watch

Charles Bobinet · probably ca. 1655–60

Public domainThe Met
Design for a watch chain and two bracelets, by Augusto Castellani, Roman, 1829 - 1914

Design for a watch chain and two bracelets

Augusto Castellani, Roman, 1829 - 1914 · ca. 1870

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Pocket watch, by Robert Roskell

Pocket watch

Robert Roskell · 1820–21

Public domainThe Met
Harmon Medal in Science awarded to James A. Parsons Jr.

Harmon Medal in Science awarded to James A. Parsons Jr.

Artist not stated in the record · 1927

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Table clock with calendar, by Lucien Falize

Table clock with calendar

Lucien Falize · 1881

Public domainThe Met
Gold and steel watch chain

Gold and steel watch chain

Artist not stated in the record · 19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Clock watch with astronomical dial and sundial, by Jan Jansen Bockeltz

Clock watch with astronomical dial and sundial

Jan Jansen Bockeltz · ca. 1605–10

Public domainThe Met
Watch Chain

Watch Chain

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1800

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Pair-case watch, by Daniel Quare

Pair-case watch

Daniel Quare · ca. 1690

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. 61 matched · 24 examined · 5 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. 1469631 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 2026-09-01 18:59 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.