Research practice
Partners in the museum
Provenance research is a permanent activity within the Rijksmuseum’s History department, where provenance specialists work closely with curators from all the collection departments, such as Fine Arts and the Print Room. We share responsibility for both the existing collection and new acquisitions. This places us in a position to make contributions, where relevant, to existing knowledge about the collection and its presentation – online and in the museum.
Selecting objects for investigation
In addition to our work on objects acquired before and during the Second World War, we investigate the provenance of other objects that entered the Rijksmuseum collection in the course of the 20th century (although it is of course unnecessary to investigate objects that either were already in our collection by 1933 or produced after 1945). We do this because it is possible that an object acquired in good faith even decades after the war could turn out to have a suspect provenance. We work as efficiently as possible by sorting objects that are eligible for research into sub-collections of paintings, ceramics, and so on.
Provenance research in practice
Our first step is to consult the curator concerned to establish which objects have sufficient unique characteristics relating to the object itself for research to be carried out – those with insufficient characteristics are removed from the initial selection. We then commence our investigations into all data sources available within the museum, such as inventory cards, collection catalogues, annual reports and, of course, the object itself, including its rear side and underside.
We then use the name of the collector and dealer from whom the museum acquired the object to extend our research by examining the archive of that individual, for example. We conclude the investigation by tracing each object individually in the available literature and databases to discover information regarding its appearance in auction catalogues, for example. Contextual research of this kind is particularly important when it concerns objects with a low unicity value.
Network
In the course of our research, besides drawing on the expertise of our colleagues at the museum we have exchanges with the public and with experts external to the museum. To this latter end, we are affiliated with the Provenance Group of the University of Amsterdam and the Association for Provenance Research (Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung, AKP), the international association for professional provenance researchers.
Research resources in the Rijksmuseum
If you wish to conduct your own provenance research, you are welcome to use the various resources available at the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum holds some 130,000 auction catalogues dating from the 17th century to today. Something less than 50 per cent of the sale catalogues can now be accessed via the Rijksmuseum Research Library catalogue. Most of the sale catalogues from the Second World War period have not been entered into the online Rijksmuseum Research Library catalogue, and are therefore not available yet. To contact the library with a request for information about the sale catalogue you are looking for, please send an email to studiezaal@rijksmuseum.nl.
The Rijksmuseum archive is a source of information about the history of the museum and its interactions. It contains correspondence, documentation about acquisitions, and other information.
Contact
If you have a question for the provenance researchers regarding the origin of an object in the Rijksmuseum collection, you are more than welcome to contact us at provenance@rijksmuseum.nl.