Art History and Visual Studies: A Research Guide: Provenance

Many catalogues raisonnés provide ownership information for individual works of art.

Some exhibition catalogs do the same for works in the "checklist" section of the catalog.

The Getty Provenance Research web site provides several databases for the study of the ownership of works of art with an emphasis on works of art produced in Western Europe from the 16th- to the early-20th century. Individual databases include

• Getty Provenance Index^® Databases (Archival Inventories--1550-1840, Sales Catalogs--1650-1945, Goupil & Cie (Dealer) Stock Books, Payments to Artists in 17th Cent. Rome, and American & British Public Collections)
• Collectors Files (Information on international collectors, dealers, auctioneers, and art institutions from the late Middle Ages to the present)
• German Sales Catalogs, 1930–1945
• Sales Catalogs Files, 1417-1945

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art Provenance Research Project
• The Art Institute of Chicago Provenance Research
• The National Gallery of Canada's Provenance Research Project
• Spoliations & restitutions in France 1933-1945

IFAR (International Foundation for Art Research) brings together a number of important resources for provenance and cultural property research, including a very helpful Provenance Guide.

It also includes two databases: International Cultural Property Ownership and Export Legislation (ICPOEL) and Case Law and Statutes (CLS). The databases are designed to “help users navigate the increasingly complex and abundant body of legislation and case law regarding the acquisition and ownership of artworks.”

Art Reproductions Research

Some museums and art research libraries maintain photographic archives of art reproductions useful in identifying changes, alterations and variations. Try:

• The Frick Art Reference Library
• The Witt Library (Courtauld Institute of Art in London)
• The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) Photographic Archive See also the NGA's Mercury Image Catalog

Several museum and art research organizations have compiled histories associated with works of art that can provide valuable data for the reconstruction of ownership histories:

• The Art Institute of Chicago
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (look for dealers’ records, auction catalogues and exhibition catalogues)

• Lugt, Frits. Les marques de collections de dessins & d’estampes, 1921 & supplement, 1956.
• Lugt Online: Fondation Custodia web site. OR Searchable Database
• Ris-Paquot. Dictionnaire encyclopédique des marques & monogrammes chiffres, lettres initiales, signes figuratifs, etc., 1963.
• Also search the catalog for subject = Collectors' marks.

• Restitution of Lost or Looted Art : Sites dedicated to restitution efforts and provenance of artworks that may be lost, stolen, or looted.
• National Archives and Records Administration : A descriptive guide to records on holocaust-era assets at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. Includes links to related resources at other institutions.
• The Documentation Project. The Project for the Documentation of Wartime Cultural Loses, based at Loyola University, compiles digitized copies of important documents relating to the theft and recovery of cultural property.
• European Commission on Looted Art (ECLA). The commission responsible for all matters relating to Nazi looted art and other cultural property in Europe. Assists families, communities, and institutions with the research, identification, and recovery of looted cultural property.
• Lost Art Internet Database. A project of the Federal Government of Germany and the federal states of Germany for registering cultural assets that were relocated, transported and, especially with regard to Jewish citizens, confiscated as a result of their persecution during World War II and the Nazi period.
• Rose Valland (MNR-Jeu de Paume) Database A searchable catalog of 2,000 unclaimed works of art recovered after World War II, and held in the care of the National Museums of France."

Try these subject headings to look for books in the Cornell Library Catalog:

• Art--Provenance
• Art--Collectors and collecting (then broken down by geographical region)
• Art thefts
• Cultural property --Protection
• War and art
• Art treasures in war
• World War, 1939-1945 -- Art and the war