It was previously considered to be in the public domain because it is a scan (or similar) by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, but not everything scanned by the BNF is automatically in the public domain.
It is possible that this file is in the public domain for other reasons, for example because it was published a long time ago (anything before ca. 1900 is most likely ok) or because its author / artist / photographer died over 70 years ago and it was published over 95 years ago. In such cases, a new rationale should be applied, and a different license tag (see Commons:Licensing and valid license tags at Commons:Copyright tags) should be used.
If the file is not found to be in the public domain, it might be nominated for deletion (NOT by any automatic process, but manually).
See below for the previous rationale (not applicable anymore).
Previous public domain rationale, no longer applicable
This image is in the public domain because it is a mere mechanical scan or photocopy of a public domain original, or – from the available evidence – is so similar to such a scan or photocopy that no copyright protection can be expected to arise. The original itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
The copyright situation of this work is theoretically uncertain, because in the country of origin copyright lasts 100 years after the death of the author, and the date of the author's death is unknown. However, the date of creation of the work was over 150 years ago, and it is thus a reasonable assumption that the copyright has expired (see here for the community discussion). Do not use this template if the date of death of the author is known.
Αυτό το έργο είναι κοινό κτήμα στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες επειδή δημοσιεύτηκε (ή καταχωρήθηκε στο U.S. Copyright Office) πριν την 1 Ιανουαρίου 1929.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse
This tag is designed for use where there may be a need to assert that any enhancements (eg brightness, contrast, colour-matching, sharpening) are in themselves insufficiently creative to generate a new copyright. It can be used where it is unknown whether any enhancements have been made, as well as when the enhancements are clear but insufficient. For known raw unenhanced scans you can use an appropriate {{PD-old}} tag instead. For usage, see Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.
Note: This tag applies to scans and photocopies only. For photographs of public domain originals taken from afar, {{PD-Art}} may be applicable. See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.
