The signature on this drawer bottom is a good start to establishing a provenance for the piece. But is the signature that of the cabinetmaker, the owner or a hopeful heir? That’s where the fun begins.

With the large number of antiques and collectibles appraisal shows on television and the increasing number of similar sites available online—some worthwhile and informative and some not—you have surely heard the expression “what a wonderful provenance” or “with such an excellent provenance it surely would sell at auction for…” So what exactly is a provenance and how do we get one, especially a “wonderful” one?

The word provenance comes from the Middle French word provenant, which is the present participle of provenir which means “to come forth.” That, of course, ultimately comes from a Latin word, but that’s close enough. Basically, it means the source or the origin of a particular item. But with antiques it means a little more. In general antiques related terms, it refers not only to the source of the item but also to where it has been all these years and in whose possession. In other words, the genealogy of the piece.

And like genealogy research, it is very easy to cross great chasms of fact on tremendous leaps of faith. If the ancestors of everybody who claims it had actually arrived on the Mayflower, it would have taken the Seventh Fleet to ferry the Pilgrims from England. And if George Washington had slept in every bed for which he is given credit, he would have rivaled Rip Van Winkle.

With provenance, as with genealogy, family oral history is the least reliable of all possible sources. Too much is at stake in a family history and very often—as in war—the truth is the first casualty. Pride, adventure, black sheep, poor relations and skullduggery often tint family oral history more than the mere facts. It sounds a whole lot better to say that great great grandma’s dresser came down the Erie Canal on a horse drawn barge and was taken by wagon to the old homestead in the upper Midwest than it does to say she ordered it from a catalog and it came to the local train station in a nailed up wooden crate. It just doesn’t have the same cachet. But it’s more likely closer to the truth, and there being no paper trail of invoices or shipping receipts, who is to say otherwise?

Sometimes you can. And you should if you can. There are always clues, some obvious and some not so, but they are there. Take grandma’s dresser for example. If you know certain key furniture construction techniques—such as handmade joinery vs. machine made joinery or general stylistic periods—you can at least get a handle on the century in which the piece was built. If it has machine joinery, it almost assuredly postdates the horse-drawn barge era of the Erie Canal. And if the style is Eastlake, you know it doesn’t predate the Civil War. Close inspection may even reveal an overlooked shipping tag glued or tacked to the back of the cabinet. A manufacturer’s stamp may be on the inside of a drawer or even on the bottom of a dust cover between drawers. And a serious rummaging through old books and family papers may turn up the catalog receipt and the shipping invoice.

These are things that genealogy researchers are used to doing and antique furniture collectors should get better at doing, particularly with family pieces. Healthy skepticism and dogged detective work are the common ingredients of a credible provenance. Even in the New England area where family records are generally better than in most parts of the country, a clean provenance is rarely handed down without some digging.

The ideal provenance, of course, begins with an original receipt, preferably from the cabinetmaker who made the piece, and hopefully containing the name of the original purchaser. This is reinforced by a series of probate documents and wills which contain descriptions of the piece in question and designate to whom the piece was bequeathed or sold. It is then traced in household inventory listing through the years until the last person in the documented chain bestows the piece on a museum or public collection or sends it to auction where the provenance is pronounced as “impeccable” or “wonderful” by the auction house’s gushing expert. This is the kind of proof required for such things as Daughters of the American Revolution listings but is seldom found in the real world of older and antique furniture.

Even though we can’t always get this kind of documentation, there are some rough guidelines to help. If you think you know who in the family owned the piece but you aren’t sure how old it is, use the old generation method. Add your age plus 25 years for each generation who owned the piece. That’s very rough but it does get you in the ball park. Also, go the library and see what style of furniture was contemporary with your ancestor to see if there is a fit or an incongruity there.

Now that you see how difficult it is to get a good handle on your own family history think of how unlikely it is that the suggested, but undocumented, provenance of a piece for sale at a flea market or over the Web is accurate. Don’t pay a premium for someone else’s leap of faith.

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Fred Taylor is a Worthologist who specializes in American furniture from the Late Classicism period (1830-1850).

Visit Fred’s website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book “How To Be A Furniture Detective” is now available for $18.95 plus $3 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, PO Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor’s DVD, “Identification of Older & Antique Furniture,” ($17 + $3 S&H) and a bound compilation of the first 60 columns of “Common Sense Antiques,” by Fred Taylor ($25 + $3 S&H) are also available at the same address. For more information call 800-387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or e-mail info@furnituredetective.com.

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Portrait of Winston Churchill

Do you have any evidence that Washington slept on that bed you want to sell? What about the satin bustier? Did it give more oomph to Mae West’s figure? More curves to Madonna’s? Did that painting really hang in Winston Churchill’s study?

If the answers are “yes,” then you’ve got great provenance.

Great what? In the worlds of art, antiques and collectibles, provenance is something that gives a lithograph, French sideboard or Barbie doll more pizzazz, more interest—more money.

It’s the history of the item. It’s the Hansel-and-Gretel trail of where it began and who owned it or used it along the way.

Establishing provenance for art, antiques and collectibles

What do you need to establish provenance? It’s pretty straightforward—sales receipts, gallery stickers, exhibition catalogs, catalogues raisonnés (for those who took Spanish in high school, that’s French for “carefully thought out,” in other words an annotated catalog), ownership records, newspaper/magazine articles about the work, articles/letters by art experts describing the work and even photographs of the artist or craftsman standing next to it. Audio or video of the artist discussing his or her creation or the testimony of someone close to the artist is also acceptable.

(If you’d like to learn more about an item pictured in this story, click on the image.)

Of course, record keeping through the generations—or even from last week for some of us—can be haphazard. In addition, there are many situations that are beyond control. Some are:

• No records survive for antique works

• Neglect in keeping records or preserving sales documentation when the works have been in the family for centuries

• Dealers and auction houses from previous centuries go out of business

• Wealthy collectors who take great pains to buy and sell anonymously

• Documentation loss due to natural disasters such as earthquake, fire, flooding

• Lack of protection from weather decay or pests

• Losing documents when moving

• Undiscovered or inaccessible archives

In the absence of valid documentation, establishing provenance can be tricky. Especially as the art-market boom has led to a proliferation of forgeries and con men like John Drewe, whose phony art and documentation fooled everyone for decades.

Forged P. Pollaiuolo (1441-1496)

Looted or stolen works, from a wartime era or illegally exported, are a major concern. Be especially wary when buying art and antiques that were in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. With all the complexities of restituting the more than 250,000 Nazi-looted artworks to their former owners or their descendants, a checkered provenance might very well land you in the legal soup.

Henri Le Sidaner’s "Les Arbres Fleuris" (1933)

So it’s important to consult a reputable expert—someone with in-depth knowledge about that particular art/artist, several scholarly articles/publications to his/her name and well-respected credentials in the art, antiques and collectibles worlds.

Expert appraisal and authentication can, on occasion, lead to a startling revelation, as happened in the case of Tammy H. of Colorado. Thom Pattie, the chief Worthologist here at WorthPoint, recognized her  painting as “Coin De Paris, Rue de Meaux,” a work by the 20th-century Japanese artist, Takanori Oguiss. The painting later garnered $103,000 at Sotheby’s. Tammy tells her story in a WorthPoint video.

Tips for establishing provenance

Get certificates of authentication, warranties and guarantees from the seller.

Provenance documents must mention the work in question and must be original.

Check and cross-check previous owners, galleries and auction houses.

Find out what has gone for what at WorthPoint’s Worthopedia, http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia a vast database that contains prices, photos and descriptions of millions of antiques and collectibles. Also take a look at GoAntique’s PriceMiner, which has only a $9.95 monthly subscription fee.

A valuable source for finding out if works were lost or stolen is the London-based Art Loss Register and the International Foundation for Art Research.

Visit

The World Wide Web has opened the door for easier provenance research. No more having to trek to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles or Harvard’s hallowed halls in Cambridge. Some clicks, and a wealth of information is available to you.

The Getty Provenance Index has more than 1 million records going back to the end of the 16th century.

The National Gallery of Art Provenance search allows you to search for information by artist, title and subject. It also provides provenance-search tips.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s site deals with Met-owned works, but can give you a better understanding of what establishing provenance is all about.

Chinese Art –Research into Provenance says its mission is to document “records relating to dealers and collectors who specialized in Chinese art during the first half of the twentieth century.”

Protect your investment in art, antiques and collectibles by spending some time researching provenance. You’ll be glad you did. And be sure to follow Jim Sturgill’s advice on inventorying your collection. You’ll be glad you did that, too.

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Establishing provenance for art, antiques and collectibles

For provenance, you need sales receipts, gallery stickers, exhibition catalogs, catalogs raisonnés, ownership records, newspaper/magazine articles about the work, articles/letters by art experts describing the work and photographs of the work with the artist. Audio or video of the artist discussing the work or the testimony of someone close to the artist is also acceptable.

Provenance, however, is not always well documented, and there may be plenty gaps for various reasons.

• No records survive for antique works
• Neglect in keeping records or preserving sales documentation when the works have been in the family for centuries
• Business closure in the case of many dealers and auction houses from previous centuries
• Anonymous buying and selling by many rich collectors
• Documentation loss due to natural disasters such as earthquake, fire, flooding
• Lack of protection from weather decay or pests
• Losing documents when moving
• Archives lying simply undiscovered or, due to political reasons, inaccessible

In the absence of valid documentation, establishing provenance can be tricky. Especially as the art-market boom has led to a proliferation of forgeries and con men like John Drewe, whose phony art and documentation fooled everyone for ages.

Fakes apart, looted or stolen works, of wartime era or illegally exported, are a major concern. Be especially wary when buying art and antiques that were in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. With all the complexities of restituting the more than 250,000 Nazi-looted artworks to their former owners or their descendants, a checkered provenance might very well land you in the legal soup.

It is important therefore to consult a reputed expert—someone with in-depth knowledge about that particular art/artist, several scholarly articles/publications to his/her name and well-respected art-world credentials.

Expert appraisal and authentication can, on occasion, lead to a startling revelation, as happened in the case of Tammy H. of Colorado. Thom Pattie, the chief Worthologist here at WorthPoint, recognized her rescued-from-a-dump painting as “Coin De Paris, Rue de Meaux,” a work by the 20th-century Japanese artist Takanori Oguiss. The painting later garnered $103,000 at Sotheby’s.

Here is a video of Thom Pattie talking about his work.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1SppYDU3sCg

Tips for collectors

Get certificates of authentication, warranties and guarantees from the seller.

Provenance documents must mention the work in question and must be original.

Check and cross-check previous owners, galleries and auction houses.

Research auctions at ArtPrice.com and ArtNet.com.

Check the lost or stolen works database at the London-based Art Loss Register and at the International Foundation for Art Research.

Visit

The Getty Provenance Index

The National Gallery of Art Provenance Search

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese Art – Research into Provenance