Provenance
Provenance (from Latin provenire "to come from") generally refers to the origin of a person or thing. The term has a special meaning as designation of the origin of works of art and cultural goods, their research is dedicated to provenance research . The term is also used as an indication of the origin of goods, usually in the sense of an indication of quality.
Works of art and cultural assets
Today the term is mainly used for the ownership structure of objects and their history in the field of the art market as well as archival material , private collections and library or museum holdings .
Depending on the type of work, the origin can be documented differently. Purchase contracts, collection, exhibition or auction catalogs come into question. Markings on the work itself, such as a library stamp or an ex-libris, as well as handwritten ownership notices are also common on books. The book cover can also provide information on previous owners, for example in the case of uniformly bound libraries. Paintings and sculptures can have notes on the back with information on exhibitions and loans .
The provenance of a work is important to document the authenticity of the work and to uncover forgeries . On the art market, works from a famous collection can have a higher value than a comparable work without this previous owner. Therefore, in the case of art forgeries, it sometimes happens that proof of origin from a known collection is also forged at the same time, on the one hand to increase the value, on the other hand to dispel doubts about the authenticity. The best known example is the alleged Werner Jäger collection , which served as proof of origin for numerous counterfeit works of art, but which in reality never existed.
However, it can also provide information about existing property claims. The provenance research should examine whether a work has been stolen or a previous owner of the Nazi-looted art is. In the case of works of cross-border origin, the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Measures to Prohibit and Prevent the Inadmissible Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property from 1970 can convey claims. In these and similar cases, restitution claims must be examined.
In the case of archives and libraries in particular, provenance can also be a classification criterion. Especially in the case of bequests , closed old holdings or valuable donations , a closed list of the holdings according to the provenance principle comes into consideration: The individual objects are then not thematically or chronologically incorporated into the inventory and duplicates are not separated. If the origin is less prominent, the pertinence principle is applied.
Further use
In forestry , provenance is the area of origin of a tree species.
In the case of merchandise, it can be used to designate, among other things, the place of manufacture, the main trading place or the place of discovery, but also certain qualities.
In geology and especially in sedimentology , provenance analysis is often understood to mean the reconstruction of the origin of a clastic sediment . The main focus is on the climatic, tectonic and geomorphological characteristics, the size and distance of the delivery area and the delivery rock that has eroded there. In a broader sense, the history of a sediment or sedimentary rock from the initial erosion to the final deposition should be examined in the provenance analysis.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Provenance. Duden.de, accessed on July 16, 2014 .
- ↑ Sotheby’s auction house , glossary: “ Provenance: An important part of the authentication process, provenance establishes the chain of ownership back (if possible) to the date an item was created. Provenance can significantly impact the value of an object. " Retrieved July 8, 2014.
- ↑ Provenance. Lexicon of Biology, Spectrum.de , accessed on July 16, 2014 .
- ↑ Provenance. Carpet Lexicon, Kibek.de, accessed on July 16, 2014 .
- ^ FJ Pettijohn, PE Potter, R. Siever: Sand and Sandstone . 2nd Edition. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1987, ISBN 3-540-96350-2 , pp. 553 .
- ↑ Gert Jan Weltje, Hilmar von Eynatten: Quantitative provenance analysis of sediments: review and outlook . In: Sedimentary Geology . tape 171 , 2004, p. 1-11 .