This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain". This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details.
Assessment
This file was a candidate in Picture of the Year 2006. This formerly was a featured picture on Wikimedia Commons (Featured pictures) and was considered one of the finest images. See its nomination here.
If you think this file should be featured on Wikimedia Commons as well, feel free to nominate it.
If you have an image of better quality that can be published under a suitable copyright license, be sure to upload it, tag it, and nominate it.