The composition of coats of arms are generally public domain with respect to copyright laws, and may be reproduced freely.
This corresponds to the international traditional usage, and is explicitly stated in some national copyright laws. Some compositions, of more recent origin, may be copyrighted.
This is not a valid license as such, being a "public domain" statement for the coat of arms definition only. It must be completed with the copyright tag associated to the picture creation.
Please note that this applies only to the coat of arms definition (composition / description). The representation of a coat of arms is an artistic creation, subject as such to copyright laws.
Restriction of use - Legal notice: Most of the time, the usage of coats of arms is governed by legal restrictions, independent of the status of the depiction shown here. A coat of arms represents its owner. Though it can be freely represented, it cannot be appropriated, or used in such a way as to create a confusion with or a prejudice to its owner.
Usage on Commons: Please provide licence information for the coat of arm representation, information for the author of the picture, and the source if not self-made work.
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
The author died in 1918, so 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.
You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.
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.