Point the camera at a carved stone, a bronze or a vessel in its case, and Lensmark works out what it is by checking more than one independent source, then tells you its story: how old it is, where it came from and why it matters, with each of those attached to something you can open.
Free to use at launch. Works in a museum gallery or on a photo from years ago.
The case label gives you a name and a date. The answer keeps going: who made this, what it was for, and how it ended up in the room you are standing in.
The object's name, settled against more than one source before you ever see it.
When it was made, and which source says so, sitting right beside the date.
Who made it and where, when the record holds that. When it does not, the answer says so.
What it was for, and what it tells you about the people who made and used it.
Where the record is thin or disputed, the card says so. A stated gap is worth more than a smoothed-over one.
Visiting the British Museum? The same checks work in its galleries: identify what you see there.
Nothing gets named until the checks line up, and everything in your photo counts.
Your photo gets two looks that never see each other's answer. A name only one of them proposes stays a suggestion, never the answer.
A label, an inscription or a catalogue number caught in your shot is read straight off the picture and helps pin the name down.
Knowing which museum you are in narrows the search. It never decides it, because collections move and casts of famous pieces stand in many rooms.
Sources are ranked the same way on every answer, with museums and collections first, so the institution that holds the object outranks a post about it. The full ranking is written out on how Lensmark identifies a landmark from a photo.
Anything in a case or on a plinth: carved stone, bronzes, ceramics, coins, tools, tablets and jewellery. A painting or a framed work has its own path, covered on how to identify a painting from a photo.
You can try, and it gets the same checks a gallery photo gets. An object with no published record is the honest hard case: when the sources will not agree on what it is, Lensmark reports what was visible and leaves the name open.
No. Lensmark does not price or authenticate anything, and it will not judge whether a piece is genuine. A licensed appraiser with the object in front of them is the right tool for that. What you get here is the story: what it is, how old it is and where it came from.
A findspot appears only when a source Lensmark read states it. When the record disputes where something was found, the answer shows you the dispute instead of picking a side.
The same method, written out where people use it.
Objects in the galleries, with the case label read as part of the evidence.
Paintings, sculpture and antiquities, checked against the museum's own catalogue.
Churches, statues, monuments and blue plaques, named and researched on the street.
It does not plan museum visits, sell tickets, publish opening hours or route you through the galleries. Ask for one of those and it says so, then gets back to the object in front of you.
