Provenance. It’s a lofty term you’ll often hear bandied about in the art world. Simply put, it’s the record of ownership of a work of art, from its creation by the artist’s hand to the present day. Think of it as a chain of custody for the art world.
For many collectors, a piece’s provenance is as important – if not more so – than the piece itself. The documentary evidence of where the piece was exhibited and sold, which galleries and auction houses it visited, and everyone who owned it; all of these myriad facts are the intangible window-dressing of the tangible object.
Verifying Authenticity
As a member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, the concept of provenance was of vital importance to our investigations, especially when we were attempting to ascertain if a questioned piece was authentic. In fact, research conducted into a piece’s provenance actually revealed more fakes and forgeries than what was learned through scientific analysis.
Provenance research isn’t limited to FBI agents and museum experts, however; the internet has connected the art world in a way that makes it much easier for any astute collector or gallery owner to verify the authenticity of a piece of artwork. Bogus exhibitions, defunct art galleries, and imaginary collectors simply cannot survive the scrutiny that a Google search can bring to bear.
Take, for example, the case of a Michigan art dealer named Eric Spoutz. aka John Goodman, aka Robert Chad Smith, aka James Sinclair…well, you get the point. For more than a decade, Spoutz used those numerous aliases as part of a scheme to sell dozens of fakes through auction houses and online marketplaces; fakes that were attributed to notable artists like Willem De Kooning, Franz Kline, and Joan Mitchell.
Spoutz was successful because he backed up his audacious personality with a menagerie of forged receipts, bills of sale, and letters from deceased attorneys, all of which were used to defraud nearly $1.5 million from his victims.
When Spoutz drew the attention of the Art Crime Team in 2016, his scam quickly unraveled. The fraudulent documents that underpinned his scheme simply couldn’t withstand careful scrutiny. They included receipts for art sales transacted before Spoutz was born, forged letters from nonexistent addresses, even a January 1959 bill of sale from a New York art gallery which included an address with zip code – four years before zip codes were first introduced! In February 2017, Spoutz was sentenced in the Southern District of New York to more than three years in prison.
Not Financing Criminals
Besides the financial loss, buying and selling artwork with a questionable provenance can have dire implications. The 2014 invasion of Iraq and Syria by ISIS, aided by the Syrian Civil War, caused “the worst cultural heritage crisis since World War II,” as cultural artifacts were systematically looted from these war-torn countries and shipped west.
Along their frenetic journey, one that began under the temples in Palmyra and in the galleries of Mosul, these artifacts shed their dubious past and, with the help of bogus documentation, were given a new provenance. They ended up, pristine and unencumbered, in the rarified air of the world’s finest auction houses and art galleries, with the sales proceeds used to finance terrorism.
In 2015, the Art Crime Team placed these galleries, auction houses, and dealers on notice, advising them of the nexus between antiquities of questionable provenance and terrorism financing:
“Purchasing an object looted and/or sold by the Islamic State may provide financial support to a terrorist organization and could be prosecuted.”
The notice was intended to educate the industry to the very real perils of buying or selling cultural artifacts that have a questionable provenance. It appears that the message was received and understood, as no galleries or auction houses were charged with material support of terrorism during my tenure on the Art Crime Team.
Protecting Your Investment
Much of a piece’s historical information is displayed on its verso like breadcrumbs. The trail is traced by gallery labels, museum accession stickers, and, in the case of Nazi-looted art, the notorious stamp of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the task force Hermann Göring created for the looting of Jewish cultural property throughout Europe.
These marks, from the whimsical to the repulsive, contribute to a piece’s provenance. They tell a story; maybe a good story, maybe a really bad one, but a story nonetheless.
Before acquiring any piece of artwork, it’s incumbent upon the potential buyer to do some research to ensure that the actual history of the piece aligns with its purported provenance.
Argus Cultural Property Consultants can help protect collectors and institutions from making these costly mistakes. We have decades of investigative experience in the art sector. Likewise, if you have already purchased a piece and feel you have been a victim of a confidence scam, consignment fraud, or fakes and forgeries, our skilled team can investigate and recover your property or losses.