Online Workshops Resources

Resources for Researching and Publishing the Provenance Histories of Islamic Art

Provenance research is a specialized skill usually gained through firsthand experience in museum collections and archives, yet its findings have legal, ethical, and scholarly implications well beyond the institutions where such work is generally carried out. Provenance research and publishing is, furthermore, a rapidly developing field, meaning that its contours can be mystifying or intimidating to those not regularly working in this discipline.

The Historians of Islamic Art Association’s January 2024 workshop was envisioned as an introduction to researching and publishing the provenance histories of art from the Middle East. The video introduces the workshop and this web page of resources for further study and discussion.

We welcome comments or suggestions for additional resources. Please contact sec.hiaa@gmail.com

 

General Resources on Provenance Research

Inês Fialho Brandão, Anne Dunn Vaturi, and Martina Rugiadi

The practice of provenance research has branched from establishing the pedigree and authenticity of works of art to discussing issues of rightful ownership, whether individual or communitarian, chain of custody, restitution, reparation, and repatriation. Yet the field of Islamic art provenance research appears to have side-stepped these debates, with momentary exceptions. The resources listed here provide introductions to provenance research.

Research Guides

· Middle East & Islamic Studies: a Research Guide: Manuscripts & Archives, Cornell University, excellent list of collections and libraries archives, especially comprehensive on manuscripts, see also primary sources

· History:Middle East:Primary Sources, University Libraries, University of Washington

· “Biens culturels issus de contextes coloniaux—état des sources pour les collections publiques françaises,” Musée du Quai Branly, research guide about cultural property from colonial contexts (notably in French collections but not only)

Legal Resources

Ethics Resources

Other Resources for Islamic Art Provenance Research

· Acquisitions and Provenance of Islamic Art between 1933-1945: Current Research and Networking, workshop held in Berlin, October 13-14, 2023

· Inês Fialho Brandão, “The E.R.R database and the recreation of Nazi-looted Islamic art collections in Paris,” Collecting: Modus Operandi, 1900-1950, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2019. YouTube video here.

· Irene Romano, ed. The Fate of Antiquities in the Nazi Era, Special Issue, RIHA Journal (2023)

Provenance Websites: US Museums

The following non-exhaustive list of websites provides information about provenance research strategies in a range of American museums of different sizes, collecting histories, and institutional contexts. Museum collection databases should also be consulted as provenance information is now regularly included on object records.

· Researching the Provenance of a Work of Art | The Art Institute of Chicago

· Provenance Research, Museum of Fine Arts Boston

· Nazi-Era Provenance, Cleveland Museum of Art

· Provenance, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum

· Provenance, Dumbarton Oaks

· Research on Collection Provenance, 1933-45, Getty Museum

· Collecting Policy and Provenance Guidelines, Harvard University Art Museums

· Provenance Research Resources, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

· Provenance Research Project, MoMA

· World War II Provenance Research, National Gallery of Art

· Provenance Program, National Museum of Asian Art

· Provenance Research, Philadelphia Museum of Art

· Collecting and Provenance Research, Princeton University Art Museum

· Provenance Project, Saint Louis Art Museum

· Collection Resources, Seattle Art Museum (SAM)

· Provenance Research Project, The Clark Art Institute

· LUX: Yale Collections Discovery, Yale Museums and Libraries

Provenance Websites: International Museums

The following non-exhaustive list of websites provides information about provenance research strategies in a range of global museums of different sizes, collecting histories, and institutional contexts. Museum collection databases should also be consulted as provenance information is now regularly included on object records.

· 1933-1945 Provenance, The British Museum

· Spoliation of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period, National Museum Directors’ Council Website, National Museums

· National Inventory Research Project | Research | The National Gallery, London

· Rose Valland Database, POP (La Platforme ouverte du patrimoine), Ministère de la Culture

· Provenance Research, National Gallery of Australia

· Provenance, National Gallery of Canada

· Provenance Research at the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario

Archives, Documents, and Related Projects for Islamic Art Historians

Anne Dunn Vaturi and Martina Rugiadi

Provenance research has benefited from the increasing availability of archival and other resources on the dealers, collectors, and scholars involved in art sales in the 19th and 20th centuries. These include major digital resources, archival resources in European and American museums, archival resources in origin countries, genealogy websites, and information gleaned from the objects themselves.

Collectors and Dealers

· Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America, The Frick

· Antique Dealers: the British Antique Trade in the 20th Century, University of Leeds

· Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

· Selected Collectors and Dealers, National Museum of Asian Art

· Chinese Art-Research into Provenance, University of Glasgow

· Collectionneurs, collecteurs et marchands d'art asiatique en France 1700-1939, AGORHA, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), particularly files about vendors, donors and collectors (19th-20th c.) kept in the French Archives Nationales (Series F21)

· Provenance Index Databases, Getty Research Institute

· Discovery, The National Archives, UK

· Islamic Art Archives at the University of Michigan, hosts material from Mehmet Ağa-Oğlu, Arthur Upham Pope, Donald Newton Wilber, Oleg Grabar, Marianna Shreve Simpson, and the Afghanistan Archaeological Remains Photographs Collection. Material from 1925-2013, the majority within 1925-28, 1930-1949, 1954-79, 1970-2013.

Archival Resources by Individuals

Early Collection Catalogues

The following individuals had catalogues made of their own collections in their lifetimes.

· John Henderson (1797-1878). Works of Art in Pottery, Glass and Metal in the Collection of John Henderson (London: 1868). See also the digitized photographs in the V&A online archive (“Henderson Collection”)

· Frederick DuCane Godman (1834-1919). In Henry Wallis, The Godman Collection: 13th Century Vases (London: Privately printed, 1891) and Henry Wallis, Persian Ceramic Art belonging to F. DuCane Godman, with examples from other Collections: The 13th century Lustred Wall-Tiles (London: Privately printed, 1894)

· George Salting (1834-1909). The Salting Collection. With 16 Illustrations (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1911)

· Charles Drury Fortnum (1820-1899). A Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica and Enamelled Earthenware of Italy, the Persian, Damascus, Rhodian, Hispano-Moresque, and some French and other Wares in the Ashmolean Museum, Fortnum Collection (Oxford : At the Clarendon Press, 1897) and A Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica, Hispano-Moresco, Persian, Damascus, and Rhodian Wares, in the South Kensington Museum with Historical Notices, Marks, and Monograms (London: Chapman & Hall, 1873)

· Louis Duc du Blacas (1815-1866). In Reinaud, Joseph-Toussaint. Monumens arabes, persans et turcs du cabinet de M. le Duc de Blacas et d’autres cabinets: Considérés et décrits d’après leurs rapports avec les croyances, les moeurs et l’histoire des nations musulmanes. 2 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1828.

· See discussion of early collectors in Isabelle Gadoin, “What is a Collector? From the Giants of Collecting to Small Amateurs: their Respective Contributions to Victorian Collections of Islamic Art,” Études anglaises, vol. 70, no. 4, 2017, pp. 387-405.

Scholars and Travelers

Most are useful for architectural pieces, including lost buildings and elements; occasionally, portable objects are also documented.

· Archnet.org

· Photographic archives for Josephine Powell, Rebii Barkin, Baroness Ullens, Langdon Warner, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University Library

· Josephine Powell Slide Collection, Koç Üniversitesi

· Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University

· The Creswell Archive, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, K.A.C. Creswell photographic negatives

· Archibald Creswell photographs, Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti/The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, K.A.C. Creswell photo archive

· K. A. C. Creswell's photographs of the Middle East, Victoria and Albert

· K.A.C. Creswell Collection of Photographs of Islamic Architecture, The American University in Cairo

· Garth Fowden, Cambridge Digital Library, photographs

· André Godard - Fonds Godard, Louvre, département des arts de l’Islam Other archives produced by André Godard are at the musée Guimet, Paris, in Iran and at Harvard University.

· Myron Bement Smith Collection, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution

· Sir Aurel Stein, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britian and Ireland

· Henry Viollet, Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et civilisations, archives

· Henry Viollet, Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et civilisations, negatives

· Henry Viollet, Internet Archive, photographs

Archaeological and Architectural Archives

· Abdul-Hamid II collection of photographs of the Ottoman Empire, presented to the Library of Congress (especially parts on “Tombs” “Mosaics” “Mosques”). And almost identical set of albums is held in the British Library.

Provenance Marks

The following resources cover other fields but also include collectors and dealers who owned Islamic art.

· Danielle Smotherman Bennett, “Identifying Old Collection Marks on Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas Associated with the Collection of Daniel Marie Fouquet,” transfer - Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection, Bd. 2 (2023)

· “Appendix XI: Some collectors’ and dealers’ labels,” in Roy Davids and Dominic Jellinek, Provenance: Collectors, Dealers, & Scholars in the Field of Chinese Ceramics in Britain & America (Oxon, UK: Roy Davids, 2011), pp. 478-481.

· Louis Fagan, Collectors' Marks. Arranged and edited by Milton I.D. Einstein and Max A. Goldstein (St. Louis: The Laryngoscope Press, 1918)

· Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & d'Estampes; Marques Estampillies et ecrites de Collections Particulieres et Publiques (Amsterdam: Vereenigde drukkerijen, 1921)

· Selection of archival labels and stamps found on works of art in the Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Selection of provenance marks from Dumbarton Oaks and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

View PDF here

Publishing Provenance

Amanda Phillips, Eiren Shea, Margaret Graves

This section outlines some of the problems with and practices of provenance publishing in art history and archaeology in the early 2020s, across both larger disciplines. It also raises issues particular to the practice of Islamic art history.

Terminology and Major Questions

Provenance is defined as ownership history. Provenience, especially in archaeology, has come to mean find site and that is how it is used here. Publishing, in the 2020s, may mean any kind of dissemination of images of or information about the objects, from snapshots on Instagram to scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals to auction and exhibition catalogues to museum websites. It is worth emphasizing that digital images, social media, and the internet have altered the publication landscape in the past twenty years.

Publishing un-provenanced objects raises several major questions:

· Scholars studying the pre-contact Americas and the ancient world have increasingly questioned the legitimacy of un-provenanced works. Following their discussions, should all scholars refuse to work with and publish objects without secure and objectively verifiable provenance, especially if the pieces in question have not been published before?

· When publishing any object, should scholars routinely include not only provenience/provenance information, but also an assessment of whether that information is reliable or not? And how should we do so, given limited resources, limited ability to verify, and limited word counts?

· What is our collective role as academic art historians based mostly in North America and Europe, given that our books and articles have a relatively small share of the overall market in art publishing, but can play a significant role in legitimizing questionable objects by entering them into the scholarly record?

Why Publish Provenance History?

Publishing the ownership history of an object is part of the practice of art history and the production of knowledge. Researching dealer and collector networks is a worthy subject in its own right, and helps us understand canon-formation in the field of Islamic Art and the construction of taste. It can help us understand the way objects/categories of objects move, facilitate educated speculation about attribution, and acknowledges the commodity role of art and objects. Most importantly, it is of interest to our students and to public audiences alike.

Further, publishing provenance history is part of scholarly practice, giving sources that may be checked and evaluated by peers. It helps set a standard and create a model for the field, while generating more information—our cloud of knowledge—that helps guard against forgeries and fakes. Indeed, researchers should be attentive that a well-faked provenance is often a key component of a successful fake, while the fake provenance of “real” objects can also be used to boost value and/or hide looting and theft.

Lastly, the timescales for Islamic art mean that many of our objects are site-less or orphaned. Some (e.g. early modern period goods) were never part of archaeological contexts, while some below-ground materials may have been removed long prior to twentieth-century norms of scientific excavation (let alone the UNESCO 1970 Convention). The concept of a “secure” excavation is a twentieth-century phenomenon, since some sites (places like Fustat, Oxyrynchus) have been turned over for centuries. Using present-day standards to judge historical practices of extraction, circulation, and sale may sometimes be anachronistic or misleading.

Researching Archaeological Artifacts without Provenience

Provenance can never take the place of verified archaeological provenience. For siteless objects and/or those that entered the market or a collection without documentation, provenance information can become a vital part of educated speculation. Verifiable information about when an object from a larger corpus first entered the market, which dealer traded it, and the archive trail surrounding it, can be very important in the creation of a “cloud of knowledge” around it and related objects. This can lead to further research into the origins of the corpus and enable after-the-fact detective work that permits tentative reconstruction of knowledge about sites of first recovery. An example is the detective work of Marlia Mango on the dispersal of the Antioch silver and related hoards.

For published provenance information to be useful in establishing attribution, total transparency about the nature of the information and where it came from is necessary. Otherwise speculation or dealer’s lore about provenience/find-spot/associated site can get transmuted into “zombie attributions” that continue to circulate in absence of the sustained and difficult work of independent verification, should such verification even prove possible.

Prior publication, or pedigree, is important for these reasons but cannot take the place of objectively verifiable provenience/provenance. An object’s movements through prestigious collections and/or inclusion in high-profile exhibitions sometimes masks or displaces problems of unverified provenance or provenience.

Red Flags and Deal-Breakers

The following outlines instances where publishing unprovenanced material raises major red flags and ethical issues.

· Material from illegal excavations (and from other black markets) is widely available on the art market and is published in auction catalogues, loaned to exhibitions, and otherwise legitimized. Publication of this material is complicit in the destruction of historical/archaeological context; fuels further looting/illegal excavation and theft; and contributes to criminal networks beyond looting and the art market.

· Unknown or unpublished material may be linked conflict zones, acknowledged and otherwise, including Ukraine, Syria, Myanmar, Xinjiang, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tibet, western Sahara, Palestine, and other places.

But, there is also debate as to whether scholars should publish these materials anyway.

· Digital images and social media, as well as auction house catalogues, mean images and some knowledge are already circulating. Further, academic publication might help create a stable record of objects before they disappear, that could be useful for prosecution and re-patriation, as well as for current scholarship on similar objects/categories.

· Is it ethical for scholars to publish objects as part of their own research and arguments, while also pointing to the fact that they may have entered the art market or a collection in a way that is inscrutable? Here including transparent provenance, as it is known or unknown, can offer clarity about objects’ sources.

Current Publishing Practices

This section includes a selection of current standards for publishing provenance. These include statements, guidelines, and further links, with a particular focus on archaeological material.

Art History and Humanities (journals, books)

· College Art Association (North America): 2015 Code of Ethics for Copyright

· Textile History (UK): Statement about publishing images of indigenous art, as part of Taylor and Francis’s policy

· Brill/Cambridge/Sage (North America, UK, Europe): Committee on Publication Ethics
(COPE)

Archaeology and Ancient History (journals, books)

· Brill Publication Ethics Handbook, p. 5: “When presenting ancient artifacts, especially but not necessarily for the first time, authors publishing with Brill are required to follow the relevant society policies of their field, including but not limited to those of ASOR, SBL, AIA, and SCS (links provided below), concerning provenance and authenticity. Such artifacts include, but are not limited to, ancient texts, such as papyri, inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, and codices.”

· American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)

· Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)

· Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)

· Society for Classical Studies (SCS)

· The American School of Classical Studies in Athens (including monograph series and Hesperia): “ The American School of Classical Studies at Athens will not knowingly print in any of its publications the announcement or initial scholarly presentation of any object without a record of ownership and/or acquisition prior to November 14, 1970, unless the object was discovered through an officially sanctioned excavation or survey, legally entered a collection within its country of origin, or was legally exported from the country of origin. Authors may be asked to provide evidence allowing discussion of artifacts lacking an archaeological provenance.”

· Ancient Mesoamerica (CUP): “From late 2022 Ancient Mesoamerica will require all authors to publish a Data Availability Statement as part of their article. One of the pressing concerns in archaeology is data preservation. As we move toward this goal, we highly encourage all authors of articles that feature quantitative analysis or rely on images, materials, protocols, or software code to make data available for replication purposes. Authors should also ensure that they are meeting data replication and deposit requirements stipulated by their funding bodies and institutions as well as any regulations set by governments or other bodies responsible for materials or sites under analysis.”

Practices in museum-webpage publishing (examples mostly in Europe and N. America)

Most museums include provenance in their acquisition lines, in online databases, labels, and printed catalogues. This information can include: full known provenance, abbreviated (as in these examples from National Museum of Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art); full known provenance, with further information from museum records, including price of sale (less common, see for example a so-called Lotto Carpet at the Victoria & Albert Museum).

· Most rarely, other provenance information, based on research in archives or otherwise, is included as part of description or essay, and usually because a scholar had researched a particular object for a book or exhibition (for instance, Moya Carey’s work on the Mirza Akbar scroll at the V&A).

The MFA Boston’s resource on colonial-era art provides a useful overview for these issues in museum publication practices.

Recent Provenance Case Studies

The following examples demonstrate recent work on Islamic art objects where provenance came to the fore. In many instances, these include instances where theft, problems, and fakes have been exposed.

· Tulay Artan, “Patrons, Painters, Women in Distress,” (Muqarnas, 2022) published two images of a page with a note that it had been removed from an album in the Topkapı Palace Museum (p. 138, figure 12).

· Stephennie Mulder and Yael Rice, “The Mystery of the Timurid Quran,” Prospect, July, 22, 2020.

The case of the Piyale Paşa Mosque Tiles demonstrates the complexities of provenance research. See for example the claims on a post for the blog Turkey’s Stolen Heritage as well as the Louvre’s circumspect position regarding provenance in their catalogue Islamic Art at the Musée du Louvre (Paris: Louvre and Hazan, 2012): 347-9. [Link to PDF]

Keelan Overton and Kimia Maleki, in “Shrine of Emamzade Yahya in Varamin,” (Journal of Material Culture of the Muslim World, 2020) looks at a living monument and the tiles that were stripped from it in the late 1800s.

· Shaun Greenhalgh and the Amarna Princess, published on the BBC, features a case in which the forger spun a vague but plausible ownership story, and sold a very expensive counterfeit to a UK museum.

· For other questions introduced by provenance research, and some detective-work, see also this blog, Brent Nongbri, “The Ethics of Publication: Papyrology,” Bryn Mawr Classical Review, May 25, 2022.


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