Oct 18, 2022

Unnecessary mysteries


Signs that provenance research has gone off the rails include:

  • extremely long texts that leave the reader so confused that he/she concludes that there is no such thing as knowledge
  • massive use of words indicating uncertainty or unknowability
  • omission of crucial information that is available and which provides important context
  • mention of names which are known to be either persecuted Jewish collectors, Red Flag dealers of Nazi looted art, or associates with forgers WITHOUT mentioning that that's who they are
  • excessive speculation
  • false information

In this series of posts, we will examine a few remarkable examples of needlessly confusing provenance texts published by major museums. 



 

No comments: