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 “Yenshuya Hikobei, Japanese, active 19th c.” — 64 records examined, 8 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-03 02:36 UTC · fetched live for this request

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.

Hand Cannon

Kazuki Nobumichi · barrel late 18th–early 19th century; stock, dated 1865

Public domainThe Met

A Member of Commodore Perry's Party, Western Woman on a Horse

Yenshuya Hikobei, Japanese, active 19th c. · 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blades and Mountings for a Pair of Swords (Daishō)

Sukemitsu of Bizen · sword (katana) blade, dated 1440; short sword (wakizashi) blade, 15th century; mountings, late 18th century

Public domainThe Met

A Member of Commodore Perry's Party, Western Man on a Horse

Yenshuya Hikobei, Japanese, active 19th c. · 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Helmet in the Shape of an Eggplant

Saotome Ietada · 17th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Journal des demoiselles

A. Pauquet, French, active 19th c. · August 1858

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blade and Mounting for a Dagger (Tantō)

Gassan Sadakazu · blade, dated 1870; mounting, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Le Moniteur de la Mode

Larivière, French, active 19th c. · 1882

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blades and Mountings for a Pair of Swords (Daishō)

Naotane Taikei · blades, dated 1839; mountings, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Le Moniteur de la Mode

August Godchaux & Cie, French, active 19th c. · 1883

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blade and Mounting for a Sword (Katana)

Naotane Taikei · blade, dated 1839; mounting, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Le Moniteur de la Mode

Larivière, French, active 19th c. · 1884

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Freshwater Jar (Mizusashi) with Geometric Patterns

Ogata Ihachi (Kyoto Kenzan II) · first half 18th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Le Moniteur de la Mode

August Godchaux & Cie, French, active 19th c. · 1883

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Sword guard (Tsuba) With Peony Motif (牡丹図鐔)

Takehara Tomomasa · late 18th–early 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Le Moniteur de la Mode

Larivière, French, active 19th c. · 1882

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Sword guard (Tsuba) With Flower Basket Motif (花籠透鐔)

石黒政明 Ishiguro Masaaki · first half 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Journal des demoiselles

Gilguin & Dupain, French, active 19th c. · ca. 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blade and Mounting for a Slung Sword (Tachi)

Norimitsu · blade, late 14th–early 15th century; mounting, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Journal des demoiselles

Gilguin & Dupain, French, active 19th c. · September 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

Blade and Mounting for a Short Sword (Wakizashi)

Yasutsugu · blade, early 17th century; mounting, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate from Journal des demoiselles

A. Pauquet, French, active 19th c. · February 1860

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian

紅葉蒔絵鞘脇指拵 Mounting for a Short Sword (Wakizashi)

重武 Shigetake · blade, 18th century; mounting, 19th century

Public domainThe Met

Fashion Plate no. 319 from L'Iris, Moniteur des Modes

Imprimerie Mariton, French, active mid-19th c. · 1861

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. 68 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. 1021131 matched · 40 examined · 3 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 2026-09-03 02:36 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.

Read the method

Elsewhere in the catalogue

Section 01Character index7 hand-compiled entries, each with sources, version scope, and a confidence value.Section 02NewsWhat has already cleared the US term, and what clears next — January 1, 2027.Section 03MethodThree status values, three confidence values, and copyright kept apart from trademark.