Digital Record of Provenance

Provenance, simply put, means the history of the whereabouts of an artwork from the day it was created by the artist to the present. While provenance is generally intended to be a ‘chain of title’ that includes every owner of the work since its creation, in practice, it typically tends to merely include a listing of some interesting facts concerning the background of the work, such as notable former owners and exhibition of the work at some prestigious venues.[1] An ideal provenance must, at the very least, contain important information such as the dimensions, medium, date of creation of the artwork and must provide documentary record of owners’ names, date of ownership, methods of transference – inheritance, or sale through a dealer or auction, locations where the work was kept, from the time of its creation by the artist until the present day.[2]Continue Reading Provenance in the Art Market – Is Blockchain the Way Forward?