Status: tested implementation example; upstream clarification submitted as
Question
How can a ULAN relationship such as “student of” retain its Getty predicate
without adding dozens of direct properties to the Linked Art context?
Pattern
Use the Linked Art
pattern. The Person carrying `attributed_by` is the subject, the full Getty
predicate URI is `assigned_property`, and the Person in `assigned` is the
object. A human-readable relationship name remains in `identified_by`.
The example uses
`http://vocab.getty.edu/ontology#ulan1102_student_of`, the inverse of
`http://vocab.getty.edu/ontology#ulan1101_teacher_of`. Using the full URI keeps
the record valid with the canonical Linked Art context and does not require a
locally declared `gvp` prefix.
Reproducible fixture
The complete JSON-LD record is
`tests/fixtures/linked-art-1.1/ulan-student-relationship.json`(../../tests/fixtures/linked-art-1.1/ulan-student-relationship.json).
It deliberately follows the Ferdinand Bol/Rembrandt example already present in
the Linked Art model documentation and adds only the known Getty predicate.
{
"type": "AttributeAssignment",
"identified_by": [{ "type": "Name", "content": "Student Of" }],
"assigned_property": "http://vocab.getty.edu/ontology#ulan1102_student_of",
"assigned": [{
"id": "https://linked.art/example/person/rembrandt",
"type": "Person",
"_label": "Rembrandt"
}]
}
Validate the complete fixture with:
pnpm exec tsx --test tests/quality/linked-art-1-1-agenda-fixtures.test.ts
The test runs the fixture through Meta Museum's local Linked Art profile
inspector and separately asserts the subject direction, `AttributeAssignment`,
full Getty predicate URI, related `Person`, and display label.
Proposed upstream change
The smallest upstream documentation improvement is one line in the existing
`docs/model/assertion/index.md` example:
aa.assigned_property = "http://vocab.getty.edu/ontology#ulan1102_student_of"
This is a clarification of an existing recommendation, not a new Linked Art
property or a claim that every social relationship should be reified. The
upstream documentation warns that `AttributeAssignment` adds query complexity
and should be used when the relationship cannot be expressed more directly.
Boundaries
- This example does not add the GVP namespace to the canonical Linked Art context.
- It does not claim that every ULAN associative relationship is suitable for every Linked Art endpoint.
- It does not replace direct Linked Art properties or event-centric patterns when those are available.
- It does not assert reviewer or source provenance that was not present in the underlying data.
- It is implementation evidence from Sun & Rain Works' Meta Museum project, not an accepted community decision.