@pipeworx/rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum's ~800,000-object collection — Dutch Golden Age paintings,
prints, drawings, photographs, Delftware and Asian art — from the museum's open
Data Services API, with IIIF images and mostly public-domain rights.
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.
Tools
rijks_search(...) — search by title, creator, type, material, technique, object number or image availability; returns hydrated records, not bare ids.rijks_object(id | object_number) — one object in full, including the museum's own curatorial description.rijks_object_image(id, width) — IIIF service, full-resolution dimensions, full/scaled/thumbnail JPEG URLs and the rights statement.
Auth
Keyless.
There are two Rijksmuseum APIs and only this one is open. The legacy
www.rijksmuseum.nl/api needs a key issued per Rijksstudio account;
data.rijksmuseum.nl (used here) needs no credential.
Data sources
Notes the next person would otherwise rediscover:
- Search returns bare URIs. A page is 100
https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/<n>
strings plus a total — no titles, no images. rijks_search hydrates each
returned hit with one extra fetch, which is why limit is capped at 25.
- Use
_profile=dc, not the default Linked Art. Linked Art buries the
title three levels inside identified_by and the image behind a
shows → VisualItem → digitally_shown_by → DigitalObject chain (three more
fetches). Dublin Core has all of it flat, including the IIIF URL in
relation, at ~1/20th the size.
- Unknown query parameters are rejected by name (
{"detail":"Unsupported query parameter: q"}). There is no free-text q. Verified accepted:
title, creator, type, material, technique, objectNumber,
imageAvailable. subject is NOT accepted, despite subject existing as a
field on the record.
- Titles are catalogued in Dutch.
title=Nachtwacht finds The Night Watch;
title=Night Watch does not.
objectNumber resolves exactly (SK-C-5 → 200107928), so rijks_object
accepts a museum object number and resolves it through search.- Images are IIIF Image API 3, level 2, served from
iiif.micr.io — any
region/size/rotation is requestable from iiif_service.
Quick Start
Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"rijksmuseum": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/rijksmuseum/mcp"
}
}
}
What this endpoint actually serves
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/rijksmuseum/mcp returns the tools in the table
above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx,
discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the
gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a
single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the
pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and
is the authoritative answer for a given day.
This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a
scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via
ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a
second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without
them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,
connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.
Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed
directly, instead of just this one's:
{
"mcpServers": {
"pipeworx": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
}
}
}
Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1683+ data sources. The
only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx
reaches all of them from either one.
No MCP client? Call it over HTTP
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/rijks_search \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"creator":"Rembrandt van Rijn","type":"painting","limit":3}'
No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/rijks_search. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.
Standalone (no gateway account)
This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no
gateway round-trip:
{
"mcpServers": {
"rijksmuseum": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-rijksmuseum"]
}
}
}
Or run it directly to confirm it starts:
npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-rijksmuseum
It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call
for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway
connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.
Using with ask_pipeworx
Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English —
this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:
ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Rijksmuseum data" })
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
More
License
MIT