RELEASE: NEW YORK, 07 DECEMBER 2020

Jason Sousa, CEO of Artive Inc and Ariane Moser, COO of Artive Inc contributors for new book on provenance research.

Published by Lund Humphries and edited by Judge Arthur Tompkins – Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems brings together essays from a wide variety of contributors from many different disciplines – art and art history, law, archaeology, anthropology, criminology, forensic science, and others.

The sheer breadth of the contributors’ professional fields itself highlights the unifying theme of the book: that modern provenance research is unavoidably a multidisciplinary activity, and necessarily involves a wide-ranging and contextual enquiry into the broad social life of an art work, as well as the more transactional sequence of owners or possessors.

Covering key aspects of provenance research for the international art market, this accessible publication explores a range of themes including challenges and best practice to considerations specific to Nazi looted art and the trade in illicit antiquities.

Provenance research is a crucial component of any art-market transaction. Without a provenance it is often difficult to establish a work’s authenticity, its true value or who has legal title. Whether buying, selling or simply maintaining an artwork in either a private or a public collection, the days when a blind eye could be turned to the history (or the lack of a known history) of a work have long gone. Proper, thorough and effective provenance research is the minimum required and demanded in today’s art world – a world that is increasingly recognising the need for greater and more effective self-regulation in the face of fakes, forgeries and challenges to ownership or authenticity that are now commonplace.

Provenance Research Today is essential reading for a broad audience, from those studying to become part of the art world or professionals starting a career in provenance research, to collectors or would-be collectors, dealers, galleries, auction houses, police and art lawyers.

Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems is available to order here.

Provenance Research Today – Press Release

ENDS.