How should a gap in artwork provenance be documented?

Why this question is difficult

A provenance gap is an interval between supported events, not a claim that nothing happened and not evidence of wrongdoing. Poorly written gaps collapse unknown ownership, custody, location, sale, seizure, or inheritance into one vague absence and make later checking difficult.

The Research Commons treats this as a method question rather than a shortcut to a historical conclusion. Work remains source-first, identity-aware, revision-bound, and open to correction. Every consequential result requires an attributable human reviewer, and publication remains a separate approval decision.

A reproducible method

State the last supported event, the next supported event, the earliest and latest possible dates, the roles involved, and precisely which relationship is unsupported. Ownership and custody must be tracked separately. Record whether the object’s identity is stable across both bounding events before treating the interval as one object history.

Create one machine-readable packet for the exact revision being reviewed. Preserve source URLs, visible queries, access dates, quotations or field locations, object-identity anchors, contradictions, rejected candidates, alternative hypotheses, gaps, and limitations. Hash the canonical packet so later corrections cannot silently alter the evidence reviewed.

Evidence and responsible automation

Maintain a search ledger containing source, visible query, filters, date, result cap, relevant hits, rejected collisions, and no-result outcomes. Cite the records that bound the interval and preserve quotations or page references. A no-result search is valid evidence about that particular query and source at that time, but not database-wide or historical absence.

AI agents may assist with bounded query planning, retrieval after a human trigger, evidence extraction, citation checking, collision warnings, contradiction detection, and packet assembly. They may not establish identity, authenticity, title, wrongdoing, novelty, publication readiness, or legal conclusions. Missing evidence should produce a refusal or next research action, not invented completion.

Challenge the result before using it

Test whether the apparent gap results from a translated name, changed attribution, incomplete digitization, an uncatalogued private transaction, a loan mistaken for ownership, or a record filed under an intermediary. State the missing primary documents that would change the assessment, such as invoices, stock books, claim files, receipts, correspondence, or photographs.

A qualified reviewer should reproduce the most material citation, challenge identity, test the alternative hypothesis, identify source dependencies, and record corrections. The reviewer’s decision must name what is supported, disputed, unresolved, or outside scope. A polished narrative, repeated database statement, or high similarity score cannot substitute for this work.

Primary method references

• Linked Art data model — Event-centered cultural-heritage data semantics and multi-valued evidence structures.
• Getty Provenance Index — Official scope and access context for provenance, sales, dealer, and archival indexes.
• CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model — Reference model for events, actors, objects, places, timespans, and evidence-bearing relationships.

Questions and limits