fetch openly licensed artwork images and metadata from wikimedia commons
domain: commons.wikimedia.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
identify the target file's title (e.g. "File:Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring.jpg") via Commons search or a category page
call GET https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles={file_title}&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url|size|mime|extmetadata&format=json to get the image URL and metadata in one request
inspect the extmetadata block for LicenseShortName, Artist, Credit, and UsageTerms to confirm the image's actual license before reuse
pass iiurlwidth as a query parameter to get a pre-scaled thumbnail URL instead of the full-resolution original
for bulk retrieval, page through a category (e.g. Category:Paintings by museum) using generator=categorymembers combined with prop=imageinfo
Known gotchas
"openly licensed" on Commons ranges from CC0/public-domain to CC-BY-SA with attribution requirements — always read extmetadata's LicenseShortName rather than assuming CC0
this is a general MediaWiki API, not museum-specific — search relevance depends on how well each file/category is described, which varies widely by contributing institution
batch requests should use pipe-separated titles or generators rather than one call per file, to stay within API etiquette and rate limits
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