Resolve an artist name to a canonical id, then read a short, cited summary of who they are. Free, no key required to start, and built so that citing us correctly is the easiest thing to do.
This is a retail API for artist identity. It answers one question at a time: which artist do you mean, and who are they. It is not a feed, and it is not a way to obtain the collection.
For depth on any artist, open the canonical URL in the response. It is a public page, and a person reading it is welcome.
Free-tier use requires visible attribution to Vasari Codex with a link to the canonical entity URL supplied in each response.
Every response carries a citation object with the source name, the canonical URL for that entity, and the exact attribution line. Use it verbatim. If you are summarising several entities, cite each one's own URL.
News has a second party. Vasari aggregates headlines; the reporting belongs to the publisher named in each item. Cite that publisher and link to its article_url. We deliberately do not syndicate article text or our own summaries of it, because the publisher's return on being aggregated is the reader who follows the link.
The preferred surface for agents. Five tools - resolve_entity, get_artist, list_current_exhibitions, list_recent_news and list_open_jobs - over Streamable HTTP, with no authentication required.
{
"mcpServers": {
"vasari-codex": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://codex.vasari.art/api/v1/mcp"
}
}
}
Endpoint: https://codex.vasari.art/api/v1/mcp. Add an Authorization: Bearer header with a free API key to raise the rate limit.
All responses are JSON, all are cached, and all carry a citation. Base URL https://codex.vasari.art/api/v1 (version v1).
/api/v1/resolve?name={name}Start here. Several artists share a name, and everything else in this API is keyed on the Vasari id. Returns up to 10 candidates with the canonical id, slug, URL, disambiguating facts (life dates, nationality, Codex rank), and a match confidence - 1 for an exact name match, otherwise a similarity score. Cannot be paged.
/api/v1/artist/{id_or_slug}Who the artist is and where they stand: canonical name, life dates, nationality, medium, Codex rank and percentile, career stage, and how many exhibitions are open right now.
/api/v1/exhibitions/currentWhat is on today, soonest to close first. Filter by metro (a slug such as nyc, london, paris) or by artist (id or slug). Each item gives the title, venue name and city, dates, and a link. At most 20 items, no paging.
/api/v1/news/recentHeadlines from the last days days (default 7, maximum 30), newest first, optionally filtered by artist. Each item gives the headline, the publisher, the publication date and a link to the original article. At most 20 items, no paging.
/api/v1/jobs/openVacancies at galleries, museums, auction houses and art organisations, newest first. Filter by country, city, metro, role (Curatorial, Collections, Conservation, Education, Development, Sales, Leadership, Operations, Communications, Visitor Experience, Technology, Art Fairs & Events) or remote. Each item gives the title, organisation, location, employment type, salary where the employer published one, dates, and a link to the original posting. At most 20 items, no paging.
/api/v1/mcpThe same five operations as MCP tools, over Streamable HTTP. This is the preferred surface for agents.
Resolve the name, then read the artist. The id from the first response is the input to the second.
curl "https://codex.vasari.art/api/v1/resolve?name=Joan%20Mitchell"
{
"query": { "name": "Joan Mitchell", "kind": null },
"count": 1,
"candidates": [
{
"kind": "artist",
"id": 1234,
"name": "Joan Mitchell",
"slug": "joan-mitchell",
"url": "https://codex.vasari.art/artist/joan-mitchell",
"match": { "confidence": 1, "basis": "exact_name" },
"disambiguation": {
"birth_year": 1925,
"death_year": 1992,
"life_dates": "1925-1992",
"nationality": "American",
"rank": 112
}
}
],
"citation": {
"source": "Vasari Codex",
"url": "https://codex.vasari.art",
"attribution": "Data from Vasari Codex (codex.vasari.art)"
}
}
curl "https://codex.vasari.art/api/v1/artist/joan-mitchell"
{
"kind": "artist",
"id": 1234,
"name": "Joan Mitchell",
"slug": "joan-mitchell",
"url": "https://codex.vasari.art/artist/joan-mitchell",
"life": { "birth_year": 1925, "birth_year_approximate": false,
"death_year": 1992, "is_deceased": true,
"life_dates": "1925-1992", "nationality": "American" },
"practice": { "medium": "painting" },
"standing": { "rank": 112, "rank_percentile": 0.03,
"ranked_artists_total": 421428, "career_stage": "Iconic" },
"activity": { "exhibitions_current": 3 },
"updated_at": "2026-08-09T02:10:31.526Z",
"citation": {
"source": "Vasari Codex",
"url": "https://codex.vasari.art/artist/joan-mitchell",
"attribution": "Data from Vasari Codex (codex.vasari.art)"
}
}
Anonymous access needs no signup, because agents will not sign up. A free key raises the ceiling and identifies your integration; it unlocks no additional data.
| Caller | Requests per minute | How to identify |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymous | 30 per IP | Nothing to send. |
| Free API key | 300 per API key | Authorization: Bearer vsk_... or X-Api-Key: vsk_... |
Every response reports RateLimit-Limit, RateLimit-Remaining, and RateLimit-Reset. A 429 includes Retry-After. Keys go in a header, never in the query string.
Keys are tied to a Vasari Codex account. Sign in, create a key, and copy it: it is stored only as a hash and cannot be shown again.
Copy it now. Vasari stores only a hash of this value, so it cannot be shown again. Revoke it below if it leaks.
Sign in to see and manage your keys.
Responses are cached at several layers and served with Cache-Control that says how long. Entity summaries hold for hours; resolve results for an hour. X-Vasari-Cache tells you which layer answered. Please respect the headers rather than polling: this API exists because uncontrolled crawling was expensive, and staying cheap is what keeps it free.
Market data, institutional holdings, representation, exhibition history, and everything about galleries, museums and auction houses live on Codex itself and come with a membership. Bulk access and feeds are a commercial licence rather than a bigger key. Write to eric@vasari.art and say what you are building.