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Cleveland Museum of Art API

Free Cleveland Museum of Art API with no key: 60,000+ artworks with open-access images, provenance, exhibition history and full metadata. Tested curl example.

No API key requiredHTTPSFree tier

Endpoint tested and returned HTTP 200 on 19 Aug 2026

What is the Cleveland Museum of Art API?

The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access API is a free, key-free API providing more than 60,000 artworks with high-resolution open-access images, provenance records, exhibition history and detailed metadata.

Cleveland was an early mover on open access and released a large share of its collection under CC0. The API exposes not just images and titles but provenance chains and exhibition history, which is unusually deep for a free museum API.

Filtering by `cc0` restricts results to works you can definitively reuse, which saves checking each record individually — a practical convenience the larger museum APIs do not offer as directly.

Quick facts

Base URL
https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api
Authentication
No API key required.
Rate limit
No published hard limit; fair use expected.
Pricing
Free. CC0 works are freely reusable including commercially.
CORS
Not enabled — call it from your server
Official docs
Read the docs

How to use the Cleveland Museum of Art API

Every request below was executed against the live API on 19 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

1. Fetch artworks from the open access collection

GET https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1

curl
curl 'https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1'
JavaScript (fetch)
const res = await fetch("https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
Python (requests)
import requests

res = requests.get("https://openaccess-api.clevelandart.org/api/artworks/?limit=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())
Response — HTTP 200 (truncated)
{
  "info": {
    "total": 68770,
    "parameters": {
      "skip": 0,
      "limit": 1,
      "select": "accession_number,accession_number_sortable,cover_accession_number,department,gallery,classification_type,collection,department"
    }
  },
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 94979,
      "accession_number": "1915.534",
      "share_license_status": "CC0",
      "tombstone": "Nathaniel Hurd, c. 1765. John Singleton Copley (American, born The Thirteen Colonies, 1738–1815). Oil on canvas; framed: 90.5 x 78 x 6.5 cm (35 5/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 9/16 in.); unframed: 76.2 x 64.8 cm (30 x 25 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust, 1915.534",
      "current_location": "204 Colonial American",
      "title": "Nathaniel Hurd",
      "creation_date": "c. 1765",
      "creation_date_earliest": 1760,
      "creation_date_latest": 1770,
      "artists_tags": [
        "male"
      ],
      "culture": [
        "America"
      ],
      "technique": "oil on canvas",
      "support_materials": [],
      "department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
      "collection": "American - Painting",
      "type": "Painting",
      "measurements": "Framed: 90.5 x 78 x 6.5 cm (35 5/8 x 30 11/16 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 76.2 x 64.8 cm (30 x 25 1/2 in.)",
      "dimensions": {
        "framed": {
          "height": 0.905,
          "height_inch": 35,
          "height_inch_fraction": 0.625,
          "width": 0.78,
          "width_inch": 30,
          "width_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
          "depth": 0.065,
          "depth_inch": 2,
          "depth_i

Parameters

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
limitintegerOptionalResults per page, max 1000. 10
skipintegerOptionalPagination offset. 20
qstringOptionalSearch query across the collection. vase
cc0booleanOptionalRestrict to CC0-licensed works only. true
has_imagestringOptionalOnly return works with images. 1

Response fields

info.totalinteger
Total works matching the query.
data[].titlestring
Artwork title.
data[].creatorsarray
Artist records with role and biography.
data[].creation_datestring
Date or period of creation.
data[].imagesobject
Web, print and full-resolution image URLs.
data[].share_license_statusstring
CC0 or restricted.
data[].provenancearray
Ownership history of the object.

What you can build with the Cleveland Museum of Art API

  • Source CC0 artwork images with confirmed reuse rights
  • Research provenance and exhibition history
  • Build art discovery tools with rich metadata
  • Create educational resources on art history

Common errors and how to fix them

Missing images object

Not every record has a digitised image.

Fix: Pass has_image=1 to filter to records with images.

Restricted license status

The work is not CC0.

Fix: Filter with cc0=true when you need images you can definitively reuse.

Cleveland Museum of Art API — frequently asked questions

Is the Cleveland Museum of Art API free?

Yes, completely free with no API key, and a large portion of the collection is released under CC0.

How do I get only images I can reuse?

Pass cc0=true to restrict results to CC0-licensed works, which can be used freely including commercially.

Does it include provenance information?

Yes, which is unusual for a free museum API. Records include ownership history and exhibition history alongside the standard metadata.

How does it compare with the Met API?

Cleveland offers deeper provenance and exhibition data and a direct CC0 filter; the Met has a larger collection. Both are free and key-free.

Tools that pair with this API

Alternatives to Cleveland Museum of Art API

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Cleveland Museum of Art is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 19 Aug 2026; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.