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On December 19, the last 2024 ANCHISE Talks episode took place, featuring a conversation PhD candidate Anne-Lise Guigues and ICOM representative Hélène Ventimiglia. Anne-Lise is project leader in the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the Musée du Louvre. As a doctoral student in Oriental archaeology at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the École du Louvre, she is currently working on research into the history and provenance of collections in the Louvre's Department of Oriental Antiquities. In this article she explores the contents of her presentation, of which the recording is unavailable.
The diversity of museum collections calls for particular attention to research into their history and legitimacy. The methodology used to research the provenance of antiques depends on the definition of the term “provenance”. In archaeology, one of the complexities is to reconcile the various data on the modern history of the object and on its discovery site and the context of its excavation. During three years, my thesis research into the history and provenance of objects acquired by the Louvre's Department of Near Eastern Antiquities between 1918 and 1970 led me to document the history of the collection, the global organization of the antiquities market and the circulation of archaeological objects between the Near East and Paris in the 20th century.
The method for tracing an object can vary according to the specificities, the geographical areas and the actors. If the process generally follows the same step, there are many different ways to search for the provenance of an object.
The first step is to take stock of how the collections have been built up. From this purchase, donation or bequest, three cases can arise. Either the object comes from an archaeologist. Therefore, at this point it may have been acquired following an excavation or following a purchase from a dealer or an intermediary when the archaeologist has constituted a private collection. The second case concerns an object acquired from an active dealer based in Paris, in a European capital, or from a collector. The dealer or the collector may have previously bought it either at auction or from an intermediary located near the site where the object was found. The third case is when an object is acquired at auction. According to the sale catalog, the object could have previously come from an old private collection, from a dealer's collection or have already been sold on the art market at auction a few years earlier. If we go back up the chain of ownership of the object for each of these three cases, we now arrive at the point where the object was taken out of an archaeological site either during excavations or during commercial excavations when they are authorized in the country, or during clandestine excavations.
Thus, it will sometimes be possible to start from the object and its indicated provenance to follow its path. However, if the object is not sufficiently described, if there is no specificity that allows it to be easily recognized in a sales catalog, this methodology will not be sufficient to retrace the object's path. It is then necessary to change direction and to turn towards research that does not concern the object but the dealer or the collector.
This logic consists in searching for all the information available on the previous owner: biographical elements, activities, contacts, addresses, press articles mentioning him, genealogical research to be able to include him in a network and understand his means of supply. By adopting a more global approach to the art market and the history of dealers' networks, it may then be possible to deduce the path of an object. It is the accumulation of all this data that will allow the object to be placed in the context of the art market of the time.
To reconstruct this history, the data must be cross-referenced (see diagram). The history of the object is made up of geographical data (site of origin), data on the object (typological data) and historical data (previous owner). This historical data makes it possible to identify the networks of players involved, using biographical data, data on sales of antiques by these dealers and data on their business. The documentation of their activities (business data) enables us to understand the circulation of objects. Export licences contain movement data, typological data and geographical data. This makes it possible to define the origin of the objects and document clandestine excavations. Data on dealers, police and customs reports, as well as data on the regulations in force, enable us to identify the types of objects being looted. This object data can then be used to cross-reference moments of clandestine excavations with auction sales to refine our knowledge of the circulation of antiquities. In addition, this flow data cross-references information from auctions and sellers.
Thus, these five categories organise the data to provide an overall understanding of the circulation of objects and the art market, from archaeological sites to museums and collectors.
This methodology and data organisation, which are obviously not the only ways of researching provenance, underline the tools that can be built up from museum research and archives to understand the art market and combat illicit trafficking today. Various tools such as databases containing photographs of objects circulating on the art market at the time, preserved in archives and maps of flows and movements of objects. This data also documents the actors. The collection of archives provides tools to help authenticate the documents and signatures of antique dealers. This data allows gaining a better understanding of today's networks and the mechanisms by which antiquities are smuggled out of countries.
Anne-Lise Guiges, PhD Candidate, Ecole du Louvre
Here is the recording