# The Met Open Access

The Met's free, keyless JSON API and CC0 CSV dataset with object records for more than 470,000 artworks, including image URLs for public-domain works.

- Category: Museums and open art · by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Website: https://www.metmuseum.org/
- Live data: no
- Checked on the official pages: 2026-10-23

## API

- Official API: yes, docs https://metmuseum.github.io/
- Key needed: no
- Price: Free; limits: 80 requests per second; /v1.1/search returns max 500 IDs per page and only the first 10,000 results
- Base URL: https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1
- Formats: json

Example request:

```
https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1/objects/436535
```

## Data and license

- Download: https://github.com/metmuseum/openaccess (csv)
- License: CC0 (https://metmuseum.github.io/); covers Open Access object data (API and MetObjects.csv); images only for works marked isPublicDomain
- Commercial use OK
- No credit needed
- Embedding unclear
- Quote (api_official): "The API (RESTful web service in JSON format) gives access to all of The Met’s Open Access data" (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (api_key): "At this time, we do not require API users to register or obtain an API key to use the service." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (limits): "Please limit request rate to 80 requests per second." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (limits_search): "The sum of offset and limit may not exceed 10,000, so only the first 10,000 results of a query are reachable." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (search_deprecation): "The existing /public/collection/v1/search endpoint is deprecated and will be retired on October 1, 2026." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (license): "To the extent possible under law, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this dataset using the Creative Commons Zero license." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (commercial): "provides select datasets of information on more than 470,000 artworks in its Collection for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (api_price): "These select datasets are now available for use in any media without permission or fee" (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (attribution): "Please consider attributing or citing The Metropolitan Museum of Art's CC0 select datasets" (https://github.com/metmuseum/openaccess)
- Quote (images): "Images are not included and are not part of the dataset." (https://github.com/metmuseum/openaccess)
- Quote (public_domain_field): "When "true" indicates an artwork in the Public Domain" (https://metmuseum.github.io/)
- Quote (download): "It is a CSV of the entire open-access collection, updated regularly, and needs no API requests at all." (https://metmuseum.github.io/)

## Rules for an agent

- No key needed; use /v1.1/search (paginated, offset+limit) since /v1/search was retired on 1 Oct 2026, then fetch /objects/{id}; only use primaryImage when isPublicDomain is true.
- Keep under 80 requests per second; for bulk work use the MetObjects.csv dataset instead of crawling the API
- Only reuse images of objects with isPublicDomain = true; the dataset also lists works still under copyright
- Attribution is not required but requested; do not misrepresent the dataset or its source

## Build ideas on AgentGid

- [Art of the day from public-domain museum collections](https://agentgid.com/resources/ideas/art-of-the-day/agent.md)

Human page: https://agentgid.com/resources/met-open-access/
Source: AgentGid (agentgid.com). Facts are quoted from the site's own pages; check the license page before you ship.