The RembrandtOpen Impression Project

Publications and data

Versions, gates, and everything you can download

The record is versioned like software: a release is a snapshot, a released version is never edited, and a correction produces a new version rather than a quiet fix. Version 1.0 is the first one intended to be citable, and it is gated on evidence rather than on a date.

Version 0.9

Released 2026-08-12 · released · no DOI

First public dossier. Circulated for expert review before any DOI deposit. It documents what the project knows, what it has checked, and — at greater length — what it does not know. No claim in it should be cited as settled.

What this version contains

  • Object record established under the identifier NP-RMB-001, with every field carrying its evidence and confidence.
  • Impression census opened with source-backed records drawn from institutional collections.
  • Two discrepancies identified between the owner's working record and published institutional records, both recorded as open questions rather than silently corrected.
  • Provenance timeline published with the 1638–2023 gap shown at full width rather than compressed.
  • Research questions board opened.
  • Machine-readable exports published: JSON-LD, IIIF manifest, public read-only API.
  • Editorial, correction, privacy, rights and conflicts policies published.

Version 1.0 — not yet released

The first citable release, deposited with a DOI. It is gated on evidence, not on a date: it will not be deposited until the items below are done, because a DOI makes a version permanent and citable, and a permanent citation of an unchecked record is worse than no citation at all.

Gates

  1. Gate 1Acquisition documentation transcribed field by field from the invoice: sale name, sale number, date, lot number.
  2. Gate 2Conservator examination completed and a baseline condition report written by a qualified paper conservator.
  3. Gate 3Recto and verso photographed to a documented standard, with colour target and scale.
  4. Gate 4State determination checked against the standard catalogue by a specialist in Old Master prints, resolving RQ-01 and RQ-02.
  5. Gate 5Dimensions remeasured, recording plate and sheet separately.
  6. Gate 6At least one external reviewer has read the record and their corrections have been incorporated.

Everything you can download

Metadata is CC0 1.0. No key, no registration, no attribution required — though a citation helps others trace an error back to its source.
Complete public datasetJSON/api/v1/dataset
Object metadata, linked dataJSON-LD/api/v1/object.jsonld
IIIF Presentation 3.0 manifestIIIF/iiif/np-rmb-001/manifest.json
IIIF collection of comparator impressionsIIIF/iiif/comparators/collection.json
Impression censusCSV/api/v1/census.csv
Impression censusJSON/api/v1/census
BibliographyBibTeX/api/v1/bibliography.bib
Claims with resolved evidenceJSON/api/v1/claims
Research questionsJSON/api/v1/questions
Provenance events, including gapsJSON/api/v1/provenance
State atlasJSON/api/v1/states
Corrections and changelogJSON/api/v1/changelog

Full documentation, including filters, rate limits and worked examples, is on the API page.

How change is recorded

5 logged changes so far, each with the reason it was made.

The record is held as plain files in version control alongside the code, so every change is a commit and the changelog is generated from the record rather than maintained by hand. A superseded claim is deprecated and kept; nothing is deleted.

Corrections and changelog →