What the dataset holds
Artifact World Gallery aggregates the open-access collections of the world's museums into a single, consistently structured catalogue of public-domain art. Every work is in the public domain, every image is a full-resolution CC0 master, and every record is cross-referenced against the holding institution's own catalogue and, where known, its Wikidata entity.
- ~193,000 public-domain artworks
- ~28,000 artists
- ~5,000 museums & venues
- Taxonomy of movements, periods, genres, subjects, and color families
Fields catalogued per work
Each artwork record carries the structured fields below, populated where the data is held and omitted — never guessed — where it is not.
- Title — the work's title
- Artist — the attributed creator, as a linked entity
- Year — canonical year of creation
- Movement — art-historical movement(s)
- Genre & subject — classification and depicted subject(s)
- Color — dominant color and palette families
- Venue — the holding institution
- Dimensions — physical size in centimetres, where published
- Wikidata ID — the linked Wikidata entity, where available
- Image — a full-resolution CC0 master image URL
Licensing — CC0, no strings
The dataset is released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. Every work is already in the public domain, and we add no rights claims of our own. You may copy, adapt, redistribute, and build on the data and the images for any purpose, including commercial use, with no permission and no fee. For the full explainer, see public domain & CC0.
Provenance & method
Records originate from museum open-access programmes that publish their works under a public-domain dedication such as CC0. We normalise titles, dates, and attributions, link works to a shared taxonomy of movements and subjects, and cross-reference each record to its source collection and Wikidata entity where known. Each work page names the holding institution so the record can be verified against the source. Our full editorial method is documented on the editorial standards page, and the field-by-field breakdown lives on the dataset page.
How to access it
The dataset is published as the website itself: a crawlable page for every artwork, artist, and venue, each with structured metadata. The complete record list is exposed through the public sitemap index, and every image is served at full resolution.
- Browse — the full artwork catalogue, or by movement, color, and subject
- Download — free full-resolution downloads of any work
- Crawl — sitemap index (all artwork, artist, and venue URLs) and llms.txt
Cite this dataset
CC0 carries no attribution requirement — you owe us nothing to use this data. But a stable citation helps others find the source and preserves the provenance of each work, so we suggest:
Artifact World Gallery — Public-Domain Art Corpus (CC0 1.0). Artifact World Gallery, 2026. https://artifactworldgallery.com/open-data
Because the works are public domain, this is the only "moat" the dataset has and the only one it wants: it is freely reusable, and a clear citation is how that reuse stays traceable back to the museums that opened their collections.
Start exploring
Dive into the artwork catalogue, read about public domain & CC0, or browse the dataset documentation. Want a work on a wall? Order a print.