Have you ever wondered how provenance researchers piece together an object's past? Like a police investigation, establishing provenance revolves around connecting the dots. Yet, unlike a crime scene, the evidence is dispersed across a global network of archives and libraries. Within these holding institutions, lie the records of art dealers, a sought-after tool in the provenance researcher’s arsenal.
Below I make a handful of suggestions, the implementation of which could facilitate and improve the process of provenance research and make due diligence more efficient. I will be adding a survey at the bottom of the page as it would be useful to know which are collectively seen as the most useful. Hopefully, this might improve the odds of them actually happening!
However, in the shadow of this spotlight, there is a less explored and documented facet: the fate of works of art stored in military structures such as Saint-Cyr l'École, the Prytanée Militaire and the Coëtquidan military base. Once home to the collections of the army and other institutions, these sites were often the victims of severe bombardment, as this poignant photograph of the chapel at Saint-Cyr l'École shows.
Provenance is the first major step in the authentication of an artwork; the documented history of ownership, custody and origin enables researchers to establish a traceable lineage.
Many things can trigger red flags. For me, it is whenever someone tells me that they are looking to source, or trying to sell, a ‘Blue Period’ Picasso (or a ‘Jacqueline'), a Gauguin ‘Tahitian', a Modigliani ‘Nude’, a ‘Red’ Richter, an Yves Klein ‘Blue’, a ‘Black’ Soulages, a Bacon ‘Triptych’; the list goes on and on. In the past decade alone, literally not a week has gone by when I’ve not come across someone either claiming to ‘have a buyer for’ or ‘being in direct contact with the seller’ of one of these works. The curious thing is that often none of those works is actually for sale. Moreover, ninety percent of the people trying to make these transactions happen, have never seen the works in question in the flesh.
But as per Sheffield’s comments, “museums around the world, and here in London, are already gifting objects back to their land of origin”. It is highly misleading and disrespectful to many cultures, groups, communities, institutions and entire countries to refer to the great efforts in the field of restitution and repatriation as ‘gifts’ (or indeed loans). It turns a painstaking endeavour of recovery into a passive act of receiving. They are not GIFTS.
The 1-54 African Contemporary Art Fair will be celebrating its tenth birthday in October when its flagship edition opens at Somerset House, London over four days from 13-16 October 2022. We’ll need 54 candles on the cake.
Some 50 international exhibitors from across 21 countries will be exhibiting — the fair's largest number of countries to date.
Ten years is a long time in the art market and much has happened since the first instalment in London in 2013, not least the launch of the fair’s successful annual satellite events in New York (since 2015), Marrakesh (since 2018) and pop-up events in Paris in collaboration with Christie’s (in 2021 and 2022).
Italy has a uniquely rich and diverse cultural heritage: aside from museums and archaeological sites, its archival heritage is enormous, if not unparalleled. In addition to the State Archives, there are dozens of ecclesiastical archives, not to mention private archives, mostly belonging to noble families, which in many cases are accessible, to a certain degree. The same can be said for the thousands of libraries: national, municipal, diocesan, and monastic libraries… They all contribute to the conservation of an invaluable book and manuscript heritage. In short, Italy could arguably be seen as the scholar’s paradise, due to the wealth of information that can be drawn from these countless sources.
Most of the discussion of late has been on the technological and financial structures underpinning the market for NFTs rather than on the art itself. A familiar refrain from critics of recent NFT events is: “It’s got nothing to do with art, it’s all about the money.” And yet it has often been said of the traditional art market, paraphrasing H.L.Mencken, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
As companies, Cura Art and Flynn & Giovani Art Provenance Research utilise the expertise of many specialists in our field, in order to best serve our clients. We have collaborated to bring together our thoughts on the importance of research in the field of private collecting. Our hope is that our combined insight can demonstrate the shared concern for supporting collectors with the responsible management of their collection.
Provenance research focuses on an artwork’s history from the moment it leaves the artist’s studio through to the present day. Scientific analysis extends this timeline further. By allowing us to peer beneath the surface of a work we can view it as a product of its constituent material parts: the support, pigments and binder. Each component has its own provenance, which offers intriguing insight into the artist’s practice and the painting’s geographic origin.
Though it remains rare in practice, the importance of using past and current conservation treatment data in provenance research has been increasingly acknowledged.
Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova served as a Director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow for 52 years. She was the longest serving director of a major art museum in the world.
Maja Wegrzynowska is Director of International Sales and Vice-President of the Beare's International Violin Society. She is also an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. The Art Provenance Research blog caught up with her to ask her about due diligence procedures in the market for fine stringed instruments.
Are they going to reopen my grandfather's case? What will they decide about the NK collection? What about the binding advisory procedure? Why were they given only until October 2020 to rectify what has gone wrong in 75 years?
Every now and then when we are asked to research the provenance of a violin, we acknowledge the added challenge involved in conducting due diligence on objects that do not fall under the ‘fine-art’ umbrella. Today we sit down with Jason Price of Tarisio Fine Instruments and Bows auction house to find out how their due diligence practices differ from ours.
Could this 19th century copy of a very famous portrait by Velazquez of Philip IV of Spain be by the hand of Manet?
Today, I interview my good friend and colleague Christian Huhnt, who has spent the past couple of years looking for innovative ways to interact within the Art World while also trying to come up with timesaving and innovative solutions for conducting research.
The issues pertaining to provenance and authenticity of luxury goods extend beyond fine art, watches and jewellery. Classic cars feature prominently as an alternative investment and a good ‘buy’ can yield astronomically high dividends. According to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, the 10-year return of investment in this class of assets is estimated at 289% beating art, jewellery and watches.
With a large display of pea-green bound Country Life issues as background, Lynda McLeod, Head Librarian and Associate Director at Christie’s, sits at her antique mahogany desk to talk about her role across the auction house, private interests and academia, and sheds light on the future of provenance in the art .
