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Provenance is the history of ownership of an artwork or other artifact and provides important information about the attribution (determination of authorship) of the object. Researching the provenance of collections is a fundamental aspect of curatorial work, but this research is labor intensive. It is also something akin to performing detective work.
The difficulties researchers face are numerous. Inevitably a loss of documentation occurs over time, and memories of former owners fade. Sometimes no records of transfer were created or retained. Often collectors wish to remain anonymous when selling artworks through galleries and auction houses, and their names are lost to future investigation. Even if records do exist, their location may be unknown or difficult to access because of distance or language impediments. And not all records are reliable: they can be unclear, inaccurate, or give inadequate or conflicting information. Moreover, records may relate only to collections as a grouping of items. Non-art and non-unique objects are often documented by being in a collection as a whole, and once removed from that collection, there is no way to track or identify these items as formerly belonging to a particular owner.
In particular to provenance research at the Smithsonian Institution, the collections are very diverse in nature and subject matter, from works of art to live animals, from rare books to spacecraft. As a result of this diversity, only a small percentage of the Smithsonian holdings falls under the parameters of the AAM and AAMD guidelines concerning Nazi-appropriated objects, including the added focus on European paintings and Judaica.
Given these conditions, it is more common for a collection item to have an incomplete ownership history than a complete one. Indeed, the provenance of many works of art and other objects may never be revealed fully no matter how much research is performed.
However, the Smithsonian adheres to these guidelines where applicable, and has given priority to research on European paintings and Judaica, with ancillary emphasis on European sculpture. |
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