Who is consulted on authenticity
For modern and contemporary art, the verification of an attribution is addressed to the artist, if living, to the artist's archive or foundation, where they exist, and to the qualified scholars who have published the catalogue raisonné; not every artist has an archive. These are private bodies, in many cases established by the artist during their lifetime or, after their death, by the heirs, whose task is to protect the artist's memory and work; the artist's catalogue may be compiled by the archive or by independent scholars. For Old Masters, the point of reference is the art historians who have published specialist studies.
Inclusion in the archive and the opinion on authenticity
"Archiving" is the registration of the work in the artist's archive, normally communicated by a letter or a record sheet; the certificate of authenticity and inclusion in the catalogue raisonné are separate acts, which do not always accompany it. For the market, these documents constitute the opinion on authenticity. Since several archives, particularly American ones, no longer express a view on authenticity following the legal actions they have faced, in these cases the weight shifts to independent research that reconstructs the work's documented provenance, bibliography and exhibition history, which must in turn be verified.
The catalogue raisonné
The catalogue raisonné is the scholarly publication (in print or digital form) that records the recognised works of an artist with technical entries, provenance, bibliography and exhibition history. It represents an opinion on the attribution of a body of work to an artist and, ideally, should serve as a tool for the study and protection of the work itself. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a work in a catalogue raisonné carries weight on the market since it implies a presumption of authenticity and can therefore influence its commercial value. It should be remembered that catalogues raisonnés are not free from error and should not be relied upon uncritically. Most catalogues raisonnés are in fact subject over time to updates, corrections and new additions.
A distinction must also be drawn between catalogues raisonnés recognised by the scholarly community and those whose authority has been called into question. There are also cases in which an artist is the subject of more than one catalogue raisonné, at times showing significant differences of opinion among the experts: all of them must be consulted, starting from the most recent; the authority of a catalogue also depends on its author's independence from the artist's market.
The nature of the documents and their market value
Inclusion in an archive, opinions and catalogue entries are expert opinions, not always accompanied by the evidence on which they rest, and not legal or immutable certifications. The weight of an archive's opinion depends on the qualifications of those who formulate it, on the evidence supporting it and on the consensus of the scholars of the artist; like any opinion, it may be revised over time in the light of new discoveries. A refusal or the silence of an archive does not close the matter: independent research that documents provenance, comparisons and analyses is worth more over time than an unreasoned opinion.
The role of appraisers and advisors
The opinions of the archives have a significant bearing on the marketability and the value of a work. The appraiser does not take the place of the archive: the appraiser verifies the existence and reliability of the opinions and archive registrations, reports on them in the appraisal and, on that basis, accepts or rejects a presumption of authenticity, stating the limiting conditions and assumptions of the valuation. The art advisor, for their part, handles and coordinates the process of requesting inclusion in the archive on the client's behalf.