Every provenance researcher knows the feeling: you turn an artwork around and discover a mysterious label, stamp, handwritten note or inventory number. You know you've seen something similar before… but where?

Provenance marks are among the most valuable clues for reconstructing an artwork's history. Unfortunately, they are scattered across museum databases, publications, personal photo collections, and researchers' hard drives. Finding a match often means searching for hours—or simply hoping someone else has seen it before. The goal is to develop a database that allows to search for specific descriptions of marks.

Contact : Nora Rub, SKKG Winterthur