search-parameters.md

Search parameters

The search_artwork tool accepts over 30 parameters, drawn from two backends: the online Rijksmuseum Search API and a large set of vocabulary data made available by the Rijksmuseum as downloads. Search parameters from either backend can generally be combined freely; a few restrictions are noted below. At present, all searches are configured to return a maximum of 25 results by default. However, in your chat, you can can also request to see up to 100 results for a query.

Rijksmuseum Search API parameters

These parameters query the Rijksmuseum Search API directly. They support free-text and wildcard matching and can be combined with each other. Most of these parameters also work when combined with vocabulary-backed filters: creator, type, material, technique, creationDate, and title/query can all be used alongside vocabulary-backed searches. N.B. Four parameters — aboutActor, imageAvailable, compact, and pageToken — are Search API-only and cannot be combined with vocabulary-backed filters (they are silently dropped with a warning when any vocab filter is present).

Search Parameter	What it queries	Notes
query	Artwork title	~837K artworks. Functionally equivalent to the title filter below. It's provided as a convenience alias for exploratory queries where the user thinks of it as a general purpose search term. Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters.
title	Artwork title.	~826K artworks with titles. Functionally equivalent to the query filter above; when both are provided, title takes precedence on the vocabulary path (query is ignored). Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters. When used with vocabulary-backed filters, title search matches against all title variants (brief, full, former) — broader than the Search API, which indexes brief titles only.
creator	Artist or maker name.	~510K artworks, ~21K unique names. Uses the museum's canonical name form (e.g. "Rembrandt van Rijn", not "Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn"). As a result, variant historical spellings may not match. Can also be combined with vocabulary-backed filters as a cross-filter.
creationDate	Year or date range of creation.	~628K artworks with dates (3000 BCE–2025). Supports wildcards: 1642 (exact year), 164* (1640–1649), 16* (1600–1699). Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters. Wildcard date ranges work on both the Search API and the vocabulary database.
type	Object type.	4,385 terms. Values follow Rijksmuseum vocabulary terms (e.g. painting, print, drawing, photograph, sculpture). Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters as a cross-filter.
material	Material or support.	734 terms. Values follow Rijksmuseum vocabulary terms (e.g. canvas, paper, panel, oil paint, copper). Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters as a cross-filter.
technique	Artistic technique.	967 terms. Values follow Rijksmuseum vocabulary terms (e.g. oil painting, etching, engraving, mezzotint, woodcut). Can be combined with vocabulary-backed filters as a cross-filter.
aboutActor	Person depicted or referenced	~1.3K artworks with actor references. Searches free-text references to persons via the Search API. Broader name-variant tolerance than depictedPerson — catches cases where the authority form differs. Cannot be combined with vocabulary-backed filters.
imageAvailable	Whether a digital image exists	Set to true to restrict results to artworks with a digital image (~728K artworks). Cannot be combined with vocabulary-backed filters — imageAvailable: true is rejected when any vocab filter is present; false is silently ignored.
compact	Return counts and IDs only	If true, returns only the total count and artwork URIs without resolving full details (faster). Only applies to Search API queries — silently dropped with a warning when vocabulary-backed filters are present. Default: false.
pageToken	Pagination token	Token from a previous search result to retrieve the next page. Only applies to Search API queries — silently dropped with a warning when vocabulary-backed filters are present.

Rijksmuseum vocabulary parameters

These parameters search a Linked Open Data vocabulary dataset that maps ~149,000 controlled vocabulary terms to ~831,000 artworks via ~12.8 million mappings. To allow this, original files were converted into an online, searchable database connected to rijksmuseum-mcp+. Its parameters can be freely combined with each other (e.g. depictedPerson + productionPlace + creationDate: "17*") and with creator, type, material, technique, creationDate (with wildcards), title, query, from the Rijksmuseum search API and the geographic proximity parameters described in the next section. N.B. aboutActor, imageAvailable, compact, and pageToken (from the Rijksmuseum search API) cannot be used alongside vocabulary-backed filters.

Search Parameter	What it queries	Notes
subject	Iconographic subject labels	~108K terms, ~722K artworks. Searches Iconclass subject terms by label text (e.g. vanitas, winter landscape, civic guard). Uses word-boundary matching — cat matches "cat" but not "Catharijnekerk".
iconclass	Iconclass notation code	~25K notation codes. Exact match on the alphanumeric Iconclass notation (e.g. 73D82 for the Crucifixion, 45(+26) for civic guard pieces). More precise than subject label search.
depictedPerson	Named person depicted	~60K persons, ~217K artworks. Searches controlled name authority records for persons represented in the artwork (e.g. Willem van Oranje, Maria Stuart). Uses structured vocabulary with person name variants for precise matching.
depictedPlace	Named place depicted	20,689 places. Searches controlled place names for locations shown in the artwork (e.g. Amsterdam, Batavia). Part of a shared geocoded place vocabulary (20,828 locations with coordinates from Getty TGN, Wikidata, GeoNames, and the World Historical Gazetteer). Distinct from productionPlace — a painting depicting Amsterdam may have been made in Haarlem. Place identifications reflect the museum's cataloguing and may occasionally be imprecise or outdated — verify against artwork details when precision matters.
productionPlace	Place where the work was made	9,002 places. Searches controlled place names for production locations (e.g. Delft, Antwerp, Kyoto). Same geocoded place vocabulary as depictedPlace. Production place data reflects the museum's cataloguing at the time of the data harvest and may not always be precise — some entries use regional or approximate attributions (e.g. "Netherlands" rather than a specific city).
birthPlace	Artist's place of birth. Derived from EDM creator records in the OAI-PMH harvest.	~2K places, ~196K artworks. Searches biographical place data for the creator's birth location (e.g. Leiden, Haarlem). Search-only: not returned by get_artwork_details (use it to find artists from a place, then examine their works individually).
deathPlace	Artist's place of death	~1.3K places, ~180K artworks. Searches biographical place data for the creator's death location (e.g. Amsterdam, Paris). Useful for tracking artist migration patterns — compare birthPlace: "Antwerp" with deathPlace: "Amsterdam" to find Flemish artists who moved north.
profession	Artist's profession	600 terms, bilingual (English and Dutch). Examples: painter, draughtsman, printmaker, photographer. Try the Dutch term if English returns no results. Search-only: not returned by get_artwork_details. Useful for finding artists by role rather than name — e.g. profession: "architect" with productionPlace: "Amsterdam".
collectionSet	Curated collection set name	192 sets defined by Rijksmuseum curators — thematic groupings, exhibition selections, and scholarly collections (e.g. Rembrandt, Japanese, Delftware). Matches by name substring.
license	Rights/license designation	publicdomain (Public Domain Mark 1.0 — 728K works), zero (CC0 1.0 — 1.7K works), InC (In Copyright — 101K works). Uses RightsStatements.org and Creative Commons URIs.
description	Artwork description	Full-text search across ~510K artworks (61% coverage). Cataloguer observations including compositional details, motifs, physical condition, and attribution remarks. Exact word matching, no stemming.
inscription	Transcribed text on the object surface.	Full-text search across ~500K artworks with transcribed inscriptions. Covers signatures, dates, dedications, mottoes, stamps, and labels physically present on the object. Examples: fecit (Latin "made [this]"), Rembrandt f., anno 1642.
provenance	Ownership history text.	Full-text search across ~48K artworks with recorded provenance. Covers auction records, dealer transactions, collection transfers, and restitution notes. Examples: Napoleon, Six, Rothschild, Goudstikker. Coverage is weighted toward paintings and major works.
creditLine	Acquisition mode and acknowledgement.	Full-text search across ~358K artworks with credit lines. Records how the museum acquired the work — purchase, bequest, gift, loan, state allocation. Examples: purchase, bequest, Vereniging Rembrandt, Drucker.
curatorialNarrative	Curatorial narrative (museum wall text).	Full-text search across ~14K artworks with curatorial narratives. Harvested from the Linked Art subject_of field — distinct from description, which queries a different, broader text. These are interpretive, art-historical texts written by museum curators — equivalent to the wall labels in the galleries.
productionRole	Role in production	178 terms, bilingual. Specifies the role an actor played in creating the work — distinct from profession (what the person was) vs. production role (what they did for this specific work). Key terms: print maker (382K mappings), publisher (185K), printer (67K), after painting by (46K), after design by (60K).
minHeight / maxHeight	Height range in centimetres.	Numeric range filter on structured dimensions. Values are in centimetres.
minWidth / maxWidth	Width range in centimetres.	Numeric range filter on structured dimensions. Values are in centimetres.

Geographic proximity search

These parameters find artworks related to places near a given location. They search across both depicted and production places (see above) using coordinates from ~21,000 geocoded places. These searches can be combined with any vocabulary-backed parameter and with creator, type, material, technique, creationDate, and title/query from the Rijksmuseum backend. N.B. Geo parameters cannot be combined in the same search with aboutActor, imageAvailable, compact, or pageToken.

N.B. The latitude/longitude coordinates were derived from the authority file IDs (Getty TGN, Wikidata, GeoNames, World Historical Gazetteer) already present in the Rijksmuseum's vocabulary dataset. However, these coordinates may not always align exactly with the location the museum intended — particularly for historical place names that have shifted boundaries or been renamed. Place identifications also reflect the museum's cataloguing, which can be approximate. As a precaution, approximately 5,500 places with uncertain location data have been witheld from the online database pending further review.

Search Parameter	What it queries	Notes
nearPlace	Artworks related to places near a named location	Searches both depicted and production places within a radius of the named location (e.g. nearPlace: "Leiden"). ~21,000 geocoded places with coordinates from Getty TGN, Wikidata, GeoNames, and the World Historical Gazetteer.
nearLat	Latitude for coordinate-based proximity search	Use with nearLon as an alternative to nearPlace for searching near arbitrary locations (e.g. nearLat: 52.37, nearLon: 4.89). Range: -90 to 90. If both nearLat/nearLon and nearPlace are provided, coordinates take precedence.
nearLon	Longitude for coordinate-based proximity search	Use with nearLat. Range: -180 to 180.
nearPlaceRadius	Search radius in kilometres	Default: 25 km, range: 0.1–500 km. Controls the geographic scope of nearPlace and nearLat/nearLon queries.

Semantic search

For concepts that cannot be expressed as structured vocabulary terms (atmosphere, emotion, composition, art-historical interpretation), use the semantic_search tool instead. It accepts free-text queries and ranks artworks by embedding similarity. Its filters (type, material, technique, creationDate, creator) are a subset of those listed here. Results are most reliable when the Rijksmuseum's curatorial narrative texts discuss the relevant concept explicitly; purely emotional or stylistic concepts may yield lower precision. Multilingual queries are supported. See Semantic Search for full documentation.

Artwork detail fields

get_artwork_details returns metadata across the categories listed below, plus summary fields (id, title, creator, date, url) that provide the Linked Art URI, display title, creator name, creation date, and Rijksmuseum collection URL. Nearly all categories are also searchable collection-wide via corresponding search_artwork parameters. N.B. The exceptions are identifiers (object number, persistent ID, external IDs), current location, web page, related objects, and bibliography count. See the full field reference for details on each category and its search counterpart.

Field	What it contains	Notes
Object number (objectNumber)	Museum inventory number (e.g. SK-C-5)	The primary collection identifier. Format encodes the collection: SK = paintings (Schilderijen Kabinet), RP = prints (Rijksprentenkabinet), BK = sculpture/applied art (Beeldhouwkunst), NG = modern acquisitions (Nagelaten Gift).
Persistent identifier (persistentId)	Stable Handle URI	Permanent citation link (e.g. http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5216). Unlike web URLs, Handle URIs are guaranteed to resolve long-term. Use in publications and bibliographies.
External identifiers (externalIds)	All cataloguing identifiers	Includes the object number and any additional identifiers assigned during cataloguing.
Title variants (titles)	All known titles with language and type.	Each entry has a language (en or nl — the collection is strictly bilingual) and qualifier (brief, full, or former). Up to 6 variants per artwork. The brief English title is the primary display title; ~71% of artworks have Dutch-only titles. Note: the Search API's query/title parameters only match against brief titles.
Curatorial narrative (curatorialNarrative)	Museum wall text in English and/or Dutch.	Interpretive art-historical context written by curators. Harvested from the Linked Art subject_of field. Distinct from description.
Description (description)	Cataloguer description (Dutch).	Compositional details, motifs, physical condition, and attribution remarks. ~510K artworks (61% coverage). Also searchable via the description filter above.
Production details (production)	Structured creator, role, and place data	Each participant entry includes name (resolved label), role (e.g. "painter"), place (e.g. "Amsterdam"), and actorUri (link to the artist's Linked Art record). Creator, place, and role are individually searchable via the filters above; the structured production record provides the full context.
Object types (objectTypes)	What the object is, with authority links	Resolved vocabulary terms (e.g. "painting", "print") with equivalents linking to Getty AAT and Wikidata. Also searchable via the type filter above.
Materials (materials)	What the object is made of, with authority links	Resolved vocabulary terms (e.g. "oil paint", "canvas") with AAT and Wikidata equivalents. Also searchable via the material filter above.
Technique statement (techniqueStatement)	Free-text technique description.
Dimension statement (dimensionStatement)	Human-readable dimensions text.	For numeric filtering, use minHeight/maxHeight/minWidth/maxWidth above.
Structured dimensions (dimensions)	Numeric dimension values	Each entry has a resolved type label (e.g. "height"), numeric value, unit (cm, mm, kg, g, m), and optional note.
Subjects (subjects)	Iconographic annotations	Three components: iconclass (Iconclass concepts), depictedPersons (named individuals), depictedPlaces (geographic locations). Each entry is a resolved term with label, id, and equivalents linking to Iconclass, AAT, or Wikidata URIs. Derived from the Linked Art VisualItem layer. Searchable via subject, iconclass, depictedPerson, and depictedPlace filters above.
Provenance (provenance)	Ownership history text.	Searchable via the provenance filter above; the full text is returned here.
Credit line (creditLine)	Acquisition acknowledgement.	Searchable via the creditLine filter above; the full text is returned here.
Inscriptions (inscriptions)	Text transcribed from the object surface.	May include multiple entries (signatures, dates, labels, stamps). Searchable via the inscription filter above.
License (license)	Rights/license URI	CC0, Public Domain Mark, or In Copyright. Also searchable via the license filter above.
Collection sets (collectionSets, collectionSetLabels)	Curatorial groupings	Raw vocabulary URIs and resolved English labels with AAT and Wikidata equivalents. Also searchable via collectionSet above and discoverable via list_curated_sets.
Current location (location)	Gallery and room within the museum	Physical location identifier parsed from Linked Art current_location. Indicates whether the work is currently on display and where. Not all artworks have location data; the field may be absent for works in storage or on loan.
Web page (webPage)	Rijksmuseum website URL	Link to the artwork's page on rijksmuseum.nl.
Related objects (relatedObjects)	Links to associated artworks	Each entry has a relationship label (in English) and an objectUri pointing to the related Linked Art record. It is possible to retrieve full details of the related object.
Bibliography count (bibliographyCount)	Number of scholarly references	A count only — use get_artwork_bibliography for full citations. Major works can have 100+ references (e.g. The Night Watch).