False provenance is a feature of Nazi looted art. How to track multiple versions of provenance texts over time and identify, classify and analyse "errors"?
We begin by listing some of the most frequently observed "errors".
Types of "errors" observed in provenance texts of Nazi looted art, forced sales and duress sales:
| Provenance Error Type | Description |
| NameOmitted | real owner name omitted |
| NameAdded | fake owner name inserted |
| WrongDate | incorrect date |
| WrongPlace | incorrect place |
| WrongSeller | incorrect identification of seller |
| WrongBuyer | incorrection identification of buyer |
| WrongDealer | incorrect identification of the dealer or intermediary |
| WrongTransaction | incorrect representation of the nature of the transaction |
| WrongStory | incorrect represention of the sequence of events |
| NameMispelled | mispelled name |
| Other | other |
Who authored and published the errors? Who financed the research and publication? When? In what context? These elements can be described in the metadata of the provenance text.
Provenance text metadata suggestions
| Provenance Text Metadata | Description |
| Publisher | Name and URI of the person or organisation that published the provenance text |
| Type of publication | book, article, catalogue raisonné, website, other |
| Publication | Title, identifier |
| Author | Name and identifier of the individual who wrote the provenance (or if this is not available, the insitution) |
| Payer | Name and identifier of whoever ordered or paid for the writing of the provenance |
| Date of publication | Date the version was published |
| Version | a number indication the version of the provenance |
| URL to Provenance Text | If published online, the url |
| Archived URL | URL to the provenance version on a specific date (important because online provenance changes) |
| Archive date | Date of the archived URL |
| Artwork the provenance describes | Title and identifiers for the artwork described (url, accession number) |
| Noteworthycircumstances | significant events that may help explain the particularities of the version |
| Known to contain errors | Y/N (if yes, refer to error type) |
| Other |
A look at sources
Provenances cite source documents. Who wrote the sources cited? Who published them, when - and why? What new information did they introduce? Have any problems of accuracy already been identified in the source document?
One cannot assess the reliability of a provenance text without verifying the reliability of the sources it cites.
Provenance Source Cited Metadata Suggestions
| Provenance Source Metadata | Description |
| Date source cited was published | Original publication date of the source cited |
| Author of source cited | Author of the source cited. |
| Publisher of source cited | Name and ID of the publisher of the source cited. |
| Reliability of source cited | Have any false provenances been found in the source cited? |
| New information introduced by source cited | Did the source cited introduce a new name, date, place, explanation? Which? |
| First citation of source cited | Name and ID of the first publication to cite the source cited |
| Payer of source cited | Name and ID of the person or organization that financed the publication of the source cited |
| Uncertainty of source cited | Does the footnote refering to the source cited contain a ? or words like probably, likely, possibly indicating uncertainty or speculation? |
| Contemporaneous? | Y/N |
| Red Flag on Author or Publisher? | Y/N Is the author, publisher or payer of the source publication on the ALIU Red Flag list of Names from 1946? |
| Holocaust Claim? | Y/N Does the name of the author, publisher or payer appear in any legal documents connected to a Holocaust art claim? |
What has already been done in tracking provenance errors? How can these be coded? Provenance errors, like potato chips, rarely stop at just one.
To be continued....
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| photo by Evan-Amos / Public domain |
