What provenance is and how to read it

Definition and completeness

The provenance of a work of art is the record of its ownership history: who has owned it, where and when, and on what basis it passed from one owner to the next, from its creation to the present day.

A complete provenance names each owner with place and years of ownership, and specifies the nature of each transfer: inheritance, gift, direct sale, sale through a dealer, auction. Provenances of this kind are rare in market practice. It is far more common for the history of a work to contain gaps, and for the earliest transfers to be reconstructed by hypothesis. A rigorously compiled provenance states with equal clarity what is documented and what is not.

The conventions of writing

A codified format exists, and it is the one adopted by many museums and auction houses. Owners appear in chronological order, occasionally in reverse, with dates of birth and death in brackets where known. Punctuation carries a precise meaning: a semicolon between two names indicates a direct transfer from one to the other; a full stop indicates that the transfer was not direct or is not known. Dealers, galleries and auction houses are normally distinguished from owners proper, usually by brackets. The words "probably" and "possibly" flag uncertain information, and the uncertainty is to be explained in a note; the source of each item is given in a note or in brackets. Not all records and catalogues adopt these conventions, and commercial catalogues often follow practices of their own: knowing the conventions helps in reading correctly the records that adopt them, without assuming that all do.

What one actually finds

In most cases the provenance of a work on the market comes down to a formula: "private collection", at best followed by a city and a date. A line of this kind may cover a single owner or a succession of owners, and does not say which. Hence the practical rule: provenance is not read, it is questioned. For each transfer one must ask which document it rests on, whether that document can be consulted, whether the interval between one owner and the next is covered or constitutes a gap, whether the work appears in earlier auction catalogues, exhibitions or publications, whether it has crossed borders and with which papers, and who the information originally came from and with what interest. A line without a source is an assertion, not a document: each transfer must be checked against written or photographic evidence.

The gaps between 1933 and 1948

Not all gaps carry the same weight. Interruptions falling between 1933 and 1948 call for particular attention, because in those years many works of art were subject to confiscation, forced sale, spoliation and transfers connected with the war and its immediate aftermath. An ownership history that breaks off in that period and resumes without documentary explanation requires thorough investigation before the purchase, not after. Similar caution applies to works that passed through Eastern European countries between 1949 and 1990 and through Cuba between 1953 and 1959, to conflict zones and to more recent thefts. An unexplained gap, finally, is also one of the typical features of works that are not authentic.

The registers that can be consulted

Verification draws on a number of specialised databases, none of which is complete. In Italy the database of the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage records stolen and unlawfully exported cultural property; internationally, Interpol keeps the database of stolen works of art. For the spoliations of the National Socialist period there are dedicated registers in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in addition to the resources of research institutes and of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. On the private side, the Art Loss Register carries out searches for a fee and issues a certificate in use among auction houses and international operators. It is important to understand precisely what a negative result attests: that the work is not recorded in the database consulted, not that it is free from third-party claims. The check reduces the risk; it does not eliminate it.

What provenance tells us

Provenance contributes to establishing authenticity, because a work that can be followed without interruption back to the artist or to a collection of the artist's own time rests on a foundation that no certificate on its own can offer; for this reason, where documented and verifiable, it is regarded as an indicator of the first importance, though hardly ever sufficient by itself. It affects value, because a complete or distinguished ownership history commands a premium and an absent one raises questions, all the more so for artists whose output is well documented; it also matters who compiled the provenance and with what interest. And in the event of a dispute over ownership it is the trail from which one starts to establish who had the right to dispose of the work.

What provenance is not

It is not in itself proof of authenticity: a provenance can be constructed, names can be invented, documents can be forged, and forgers know it. Each step must be verified on its own account. And it is not title to the work: a sequence of transfers, however well documented, says who has had the work, not whether each transfer was lawful. Questions of title and any claims are matters for the lawyer.

Reconstruction begins with the work itself — the labels, stamps and inscriptions on the reverse — and continues with archival and documentary research: which documents prove it is the subject of the article Which documents prove provenance.