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. 16 shown for “William Searle” — 47 records examined, 7 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-27 06:11 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.
Chest, by William Searle

Chest

William Searle · 1663–80

Public domainThe Met
Grimmia tenuicaulis R.S. Williams

Grimmia tenuicaulis R.S. Williams

Artist not stated in the record · 17 Aug 1950 to 18 Aug 1950

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chest, by the Searle-Dennis shop tradition

Chest

the Searle-Dennis shop tradition · 1685–1700

Public domainThe Met
Onslowia endophytica Searles in Searles & Leister

Onslowia endophytica Searles in Searles & Leister

Artist not stated in the record · 18 Jul 1976

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chest, by the Searle-Dennis shop tradition

Chest

the Searle-Dennis shop tradition · 1670–90

Public domainThe Met
Hypnea volubilis Searles in C.W. Schneid. & Searles

Hypnea volubilis Searles in C.W. Schneid. & Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 4 Aug 1971

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Collection of British Calotypes and Wood-engravings], by William John Newton

[Collection of British Calotypes and Wood-engravings]

William John Newton · 1850s

Public domainThe Met
Gloiocladia blomquistii (Searles) R.E. Norris

Gloiocladia blomquistii (Searles) R.E. Norris

Artist not stated in the record · 13 Jun 1974

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Codium carolinianum Searles

Codium carolinianum Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 25 May 1971

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Dudresnaya puertoricensis Searles & D.L. Ballant.

Dudresnaya puertoricensis Searles & D.L. Ballant.

Artist not stated in the record · 16 Jul 1985

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Trematocarpus papenfussii Searles

Trematocarpus papenfussii Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 23 Nov 1970

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Dudresnaya georgiana Searles

Dudresnaya georgiana Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 26 Jul 1980

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Petroglossum undulatum C.W. Schneid. in C.W. Schneid. & Searles

Petroglossum undulatum C.W. Schneid. in C.W. Schneid. & Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 28 Jul 1974

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Helminthocladia andersonii Searles & S.M. Lewis

Helminthocladia andersonii Searles & S.M. Lewis

Artist not stated in the record · 11 Aug 1981

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Lessonia vadosa Searles

Lessonia vadosa Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 4 May 1973

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Codium carolinianum Searles

Codium carolinianum Searles

Artist not stated in the record · 18 May 1981

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. 7 matched · 7 examined · 3 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.4 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 263356 matched · 40 examined · 4 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 2026-08-27 06:11 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.