Adding support for SDC of artworks without Wikidata item

During Wikimania 2024 a group of Wikimedians extensively discussed and made decisions about structured data modeling for those cases where a creative work doesn't (and probably shouldn't) have a Wikidata item. The agreed data modeling is quite stable now. @Jarekt Would it be possible to support this data modeling in the Artwork template? Thanks! Spinster (talk) 13:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Spinster I will look into it. So if I understand it correctly the idea would be that if a file does not have Wikidata item but do have local properties than we would use those instead. Are there any differences between Wikidata and SDC data models? --Jarekt (talk) 19:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Jarekt, thanks so much! The idea is that we want to encourage people to mimic Wikidata artwork data modeling as much as possible, and indicate that the data applies to the artwork using the applies to part (P518) analog work (Q112134971) qualifier in the SDC. This should hopefully make it possible to have a "create Wikidata item" functionality in the Commons Artwork template, so that the statements with this exact qualifier can then be migrated to the Wikidata item of the artwork, if it would be created. Does this make sense? Also welcoming input from @Multichill @Abbe98 who actively participated in the data modeling discussions. Spinster (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

And also prevent people from having to create a Wikidata item for every artwork they take a photograph of. Multichill (talk) 20:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

A baby step in the this direction that would be super helpful would be to enable this for the Institution template: Template talk:Institution#c-Abbe98-20250731183200-Institution from collection (P195) Abbe98 (talk) 16:39, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi! Bringing this thread back to life. I'm also very interested in this upgrade of the Artwork template. Here's an example image file. There's no need to make a wikidata item for this photograph, so it would be great to include information from the SDC statements in the template rather than duplicate everything as wikitext. I tried to follow the wikidata data model for photographs as much as possible and believe that's what people will do in this type of situation. 1ucyp (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Here are a few more examples: File:Wilhelm Graebhein - Maler - Inv-Nr 338 - Friedenstein Stiftung Gotha.jpg, File:Georg Sommer - Moenchelstrasse - Haus Nr 7 - Bauklempnerei Emil Creutzburg - Inv-Nr 55086 - Friedenstein Stiftung Gotha.jpg, File:Georg Sommer - Justus-Perthes-Strasse - Haus Nr 2a - Herzogliches Kassengebaeude - Inv-Nr 55115 - Friedenstein Stiftung Gotha.jpg, File:Georg Sommer - Schloss Friedenstein - Nordportal - Inv-Nr 55067 - Friedenstein Stiftung Gotha.jpg. We're working towards a larger upload with this institution and would love it to be a completely SDC/minimal wikitext upload. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. Thanks! 1ucyp (talk) 12:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Jarekt - we are now with some people at the North Western Europe Hackathon 2026, including User:Lokal Profil and User:Geertivp and User:Multichill. We can continue working on this issue. Is there any information you need? Should we create examples? What can we do to help? Spinster (talk) 12:12, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Here's a small gallery of examples which we modeled with SDC today (North Western Europe Hackathon 2026) - files showing artworks without Wikidata item, indicating via qualifiers which specific statements apply to the artwork (following data modeling conventions on Wikidata for artworks so that transfer to Wikidata is possible at some point). Hopefully these help. More suggestions for good examples are welcome. Spinster (talk) 16:30, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Am I correct that the two examples there are just examples that the SDC modeling has been done, not that anything from the SDC affects the contents of the {{Artwork}} template? Or am I missing something? - Jmabel ! talk

@Jmabel These are indeed just examples for the SDC data modeling. The {{Artwork}} template doesn't automatically show this data yet, but we hope to come to a point where we have an approach that works for everyone to make that happen :-) We're deliberately starting with more simple examples. Extra examples are welcome, and feedback of course as well. Spinster (talk) 09:03, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Spinster, sorry for dragging my feet. The examples are great. I was thinking about altering "harvest_wikidata" function in Module:Artwork (line 805) to use the same code as used to extract info from Wikidata to extract info from SDC but ignore statements without "applies to part: analog work". You can kind of see how it would work if for example in File:Marlborough-duke-first.jpg you add "Wikidata = M18499" line. Do you think that would do the job? You can use Wikidata = M.. trick on other files to test it. --Jarekt (talk) 16:01, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jarekt @Spinster Looks great! I've tried it out on one of my examples (still visible here: File:August_Linde_-_Carl_Hassenstein_-_Arzt_-_Inv-Nr_3188_-_Friedenstein_Stiftung_Gotha.jpg). The only field I'm unsure about is title - it only shows 1 of two possible titles from SDC, plus the caption which rather describes the Wikimedia commons file. But perhaps that just means I need to change my data model... 1ucyp (talk) 11:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Object history

In File:Jan Porcellis - Ships in a Storm on a Rocky Coast - Google Art Project.jpg, it seems that only the first owned by (P127) is taken into account (and some qualifiers are missing). Zolo (talk) 07:46, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Category:Artworks with SDC link missing

This tracking category is not working as expected. It should not require both P921 and P6243 to remove files from this category because P6243 should only be used for 2D works. Otherwise we will never be able to remove a file like File:"California" Lighthouse, Aruba - panoramio - Vlad Podvorny.jpg from this category because it would be wrong to add a P6243 statement to this file that is depicting a 3D work. --Ameisenigel (talk) 08:34, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

@Ameisenigel: took me a bit to figure out. The module tries to get the Wikidata ID based on main subject (P921) and digital representation of (P6243), but that only works if the instance of (P31) on the target is on the list of artwork types.

California Lighthouse (Q2279321) has instance of (P31) set to lighthouse (Q39715) so it doesn't match. It hits the code at Module:Artwork#L-773 that sets this tracker category.

Code should probably be updated to check if either P921 or P6243 is set and set tracker category to Category:Artworks with SDC link to unrecognized artwork type. Multichill (talk) 16:54, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be a good approach. --Ameisenigel (talk) 21:48, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

@Jarekt: what do you think? Implement it like this? Multichill (talk) 10:54, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Multichill, yes that does sound good. --Jarekt (talk) 18:34, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@Multichill and Jarekt: Please implement this. Thanks, --Ameisenigel (talk) 23:05, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done I did not add code to set Category:Artworks with SDC link to unrecognized artwork type as I am not sure if we want to keep an extensive list of everything instance of (P31) can be set to which is not an artwork. but I did block adding Category:Artworks with SDC link missing to files with main subject (P921). --Jarekt (talk) 01:58, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, --Ameisenigel (talk) 10:39, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Use of {{Artwork}} without parameters

I tried to add an English title to File:Meister der Veitslegende - Martyrium des hl. Veit (Vorderseite), Christus vor Kaiphas (Rückseite) - 10886 - Belvedere.jpg. However, in the source text, the template {{Artwork}} is invoked without parameters. Where does it get the title info from?  --Lambiam 15:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

d:Q57393954 --Leyo 19:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Dimensions

Hi, We need a way to show the size of a frame or mount, i.e. File:Kinder und Hund (Children and Dog), 1920 - Paul Klee.jpg. Yann (talk) 10:01, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Even without any overt support, you can add a <br> and then a separate set of dimensions for the frame or mount, and/or you can use "other fields" and {{Information field}}. - Jmabel ! talk 19:13, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, the objective is to be as simple as possible. If the data is added in Wikidata, there should be nothing special to be done to appear here. Yann (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I think you have the right idea with "applies to part" on Wikidata - but I don't know if that's used in this template (and I don't have capacity to investigate further right now, sorry). I think you need @Jarekt: here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:47, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Currently the size shown on Commons is "Dimensions height: 26.2 cm (10.3 in) width: 32.5 cm (12.7 in)". But 1. it doesn't mention that it is the size of the mount, 2. It doesn't show the size of the artwork itself which is 18.7 x 16.3 cm. Yann (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

@Yann, Mike Peel, Jmabel, and Multichill: , I often notice that dimensions of an artwork like a drawing are somewhat imprecise: sometimes it is a size of the paper, sometimes the size of the area covered by the drawing and sometimes so called "in light of the frame" dimensions are the size visible within the frame. Right now all are lumped within width and height. Most of the code related to sizes are in a separate Module:Size, which assumes single-values for all 10 dimension properties, like width/height/depth/etc. That is why Children and Dog (Q138331903) is not showing right. I could add an ability for that module to pick up sizes with different "applies to" (or other) qualifiers, which can be used within Module:Artwork to show more specific sizes. For that I could use help with Sparql query exploring what qualifiers are used by width and height in the context of artworks. As for Children and Dog (Q138331903), I do not feel like mount size is a property of the painting, just like frame size is not, since next time the artwork is reframed it might change. Similarly "in light of the frame" dimensions are properties of the framing and not the artwork, however sometimes that is all that is provided. --Jarekt (talk) 20:03, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Hi, Thanks for your answer. Actually, in this case, the mount is from the artist himself, and so it is part of the painting. The painting is glued to the mount, and it cannot be detached. And that's the case for all paintings by Paul Klee I have seen. All serious sources for paintings give both the size of the artwork and the size of the mount, when there is one. The size of the frame should be shown when the frame is old. Yann (talk) 20:32, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

@Jarekt: File:Narr, 1924 - Paul Klee.jpg and File:Open-Air Sport, 1923 - Paul Klee.jpg are cases where both the size of the mount and the frame are specified by the museum. Yann (talk) 16:40, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Yann: I run some statistics:

SELECT (count(?item) as ?count) WHERE {  
   ?item wdt:P31/wdt:P31 wd:Q116474095 .   
   ?item p:P2048 [].
   ?item p:P2049 [].
  }

Try it!

indicates that we have 828k artworks with dimensions.

SELECT ?loc ?locLabel ?count ?sampleitem WHERE {
  {
  SELECT ?loc (count(?item) as ?count) (SAMPLE(?item) as ?sampleitem) WHERE {  
   ?item wdt:P31/wdt:P31 wd:Q116474095 .   
   ?item p:P2048/pq:P518 ?loc.
   ?item p:P2049/pq:P518 ?loc.
  } group by ?loc 
  }
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en,mul". }
} order by desc(?count)

Try it!

shows that only about 1.5 % uses applies to part (P518) qualifier and that 99% of those are canvas (Q4259259), canvas (Q12321255), frame (Q860792), painting (Q3305213), drawing (Q93184), sheet (Q106575204). Only 21 uses mount (Q138339678). I still do not see how do people model "in light of the frame" dimensions, which I often see in the listings. --Jarekt (talk) 23:17, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Yes, I created mount (Q138339678) recently because there was no equivalent. But the issue existed before, notably when the size of frame (Q860792) is mentioned in addition to the size of the artwork. Yann (talk) 10:05, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

If I understand the meaning of mount (Q138339678): secondary support to which a drawing, photograph, or other work on paper, vellum or the like is attached correctly that item should be merged with support (Q33123524): material to which media is applied to create an image. --Marsupium (talk) 10:12, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: No, that's different. No media is applied on the mount. There is always a support and a mount. Yann (talk) 10:26, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Okay, then mount (Q138339678) is equivalent to the |mount= parameter of Template:Technique? Then it should be merged with mount (Q107105674) (a subclass of (P279) of support (Q33123524)). --Marsupium (talk) 10:31, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: Ah yes. I didn't find this. Yann (talk) 10:41, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Can you merge them? :) --Marsupium (talk) 12:08, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

OK, done. Hopefully I didn't break anything. ;o) Yann (talk) 12:18, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I have added a very basic implementation to show the first applies to part (P518) qualifier value (it still only uses the last value of the dimension properties from a WD item) to Module:Size/sandbox, it can be tried by using Template:Artwork/sandbox. --Marsupium (talk) 12:03, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: Looks fine. Please see that it is already shown in made from material (P186): File:Journey in Corsica, 1927 - Paul Klee.jpg. Yann (talk) 12:36, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I do not understand what is already shown there? --Marsupium (talk) 20:42, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: The text in bold: Medium: pen, India ink and watercolor paint on paper mounted on board. Yann (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Sure, but that is unrelated to the display dimensions, right? For the dimensions: If they looked like this:

sheet: height: 33.3 cm; width: 47.5 cm
mount: height: 48.9 cm; width: 66 cm

that would be best I think. Do you agree? --Marsupium (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: Yes, that is fine. made from material (P186) uses the same qualifier. Yann (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: When your implementation will go live? Yann (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! I wasn't really happy with this very basic implementation and don't have the time to improve it these days/weeks. But maybe it's better than nothing, so I have pushed it live now. I hope in the future me or someone else can improve the code to cluster the applies to part (P518) qualifier values and put them in front like I have proposed above. --Marsupium (talk) 09:28, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Marsupium: OK, thanks. Now it shows to which parts the dimensions apply, but not several sizes if they are mentioned in WD. Yann (talk) 09:44, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, showing several sizes is a missing feature unfortunately. The current implementation starting from Module:Size#L-227 loops through statements of the same property and only evaluates the last one. It will need a bit of rewriting to support >1 statement for the same property. --Marsupium (talk) 11:24, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Creating a WD item from Artwork information

Hi, When creating a WD item from Artwork information, |institution = {{Institution:Metropolitan Museum of Art}} bugs. If I remove the {{Institution}} template, it works. Any idea? Yann (talk) 18:13, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I guess you tried with Special:Permalink/1179410894. What do you mean by "creating a WD item from Artwork information"? Are you talking about the link to QuickStatements at this button: ? I notice that the button (and link) does not appear on Special:Permalink/1179410894 which looks like a bug to me. Jarekt, do you have an idea, what's going on here? --Marsupium (talk) 09:38, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Yann and Marsupium: I looked at File:Winter Journey, 1921 - Paul Klee, MET DP-819-001.jpg mentioned by Marsupium, and I see that is missing. The reason for this (see Module:Artwork line 466) is that "+" sign is only for paintings and according to Data:Completely indexed painting collections.tab all paintings in MET were already catalogued. This is a feature introduced by User:Multichill aimed at preventing creation of duplicate Wikidata items. However in this case I do not think we have an item for this painting. --Jarekt (talk) 16:16, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jarekt and Marsupium: Yes, I am talking about what Marsupium said above. And no, certainly not all works from the MET are already catalogued. Specifically the Winter Journey mentioned above is not. By design or not, this is clearly a bug. Yann (talk) 16:33, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

@Yann: please talk with User:Multichill who mostly maintains Data:Completely indexed painting collections.tab to see if it is OK to remove MET from "Completely indexed painting collections". --Jarekt (talk) 17:50, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Frankly, this list is quite ridiculous. I see that the Louvre is also mentioned. Both the MET and the Louvre have hundreds of thousands of paintings, how could anyone claim that they all have been catalogued? Yann (talk) 18:00, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

File:Winter Journey, 1921 - Paul Klee, MET DP-819-001.jpg is a drawing according to https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/483047 . Multichill (talk) 12:15, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

@Yann: , I agree it is not ideal, but we do have a lot of issues with duplicate items and this is a way to reduce creation of duplicate items in cases where new item is most likely a duplicate. For example, I was working on cataloguing Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Q381238) and it is very unlikely that there is an image on Commons of his artworks which does not have a wikidata item. Adding his name to data:Completely indexed painters.tab makes it harder to create duplicate items. Similarly, Multichill was importing all paintings (and only paintings) from numerous museums and was trying to prevent people from creating painting items. A workaround you can use is to create an empty new item, connect it and than import properties. --Jarekt (talk) 15:18, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

File:Winter Journey, 1921 - Paul Klee, MET DP-819-001.jpg is a watercolor painting. Shouldn't it be classified as painting (Q3305213)? I think that was already discussed and settled on Wikidata. For Klee, it is particularly difficult, as he used to mixed up several types of paints and other materials, but he is certainly not the only artist who did that. Yann (talk) 15:35, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

I have checked other works, and gouache paintings are also classified as "drawing", e.g. File:Colorful Architecture, 1917 - Paul Klee, MET DT7780.jpg. 90% of Klee's paintings are not made with oil paint, so they should not be considered as paintings? Which is quite ridiculous. Some time, common sense should be used... Yann (talk) 16:20, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

FWIW, there are tons of misclassifications of artworks in Wikidata. I can't think of how many I've reclassified, but I've found clear-cut cases like a sculpture referred to as a painting. - Jmabel ! talk 19:35, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

In art history watercolor painting (Q18761202) is considered a painting (Q3305213) and/or a drawing (Q93184) depending on who you ask and context. We have watercolor painting (Q18761202) which is subclass of both and should be used in instance of (P31).

For reference: On Wikidata we have 1073125 painting (Q3305213), 124557 drawing (Q93184) and 19327 watercolor painting (Q18761202). Multichill (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2026 (UTC)