certificate of authenticity auction template

In 2008, Banksy’s collector online service (began to authenticate his gallery works on paper and canvas following significant secondary market interest. It is widely known that Banksy does not sign his street works or offer online authentication – Bonhams, for example, refuses to deal with Banksy’s street works on the ethical basis of respect for the artist’s intention to communicate in the public environment. In January 2012, for example, there was wide media coverage of street artwork in Liverpool attributed to Banksy, whose official website (offered no evidence in support of his authorship. It is perhaps because the vast majority of artists do not have their works regularly traded in the secondary market and have parted with their works without issuing such certificates (or written sale contracts or deeds of gift including assertions of authorship) that collectors and traders call upon them to do so once a secondary market for their works develops. Ideally, certificates should be signed and dated by the artist and given to the first collector of the work – operating as a ‘passport’ to travel with the work as its ownership changes and obviating the need for any adjacent written sale contract/s or deed/s of gift to be passed on.

In modern times, however, such sensible business practices somehow became the exception, not the rule: hence the demand by second and subsequent collectors for authenticity certificates. Many such documents have survived for centuries, suggesting that their execution by artists (and their patrons) appears to have been normal business practice throughout western art history. Written sale contracts or deeds of gift, signed by the artist, can record essential details of the primary/studio sale or donation: the work’s title, medium/s, dimensions, year/s of making, edition/series and so on, and stating that the work is the artist’s original. In the case of contemporary works, artists can create unique and arguably unassailable proof of their authorship. Respected catalogues raisonnés often meet scholarly and market needs but cannot do so for living and recently dead artists.

In the absence of accurate documentation of a work’s provenance (from primary sale or gift through subsequent resales) academic experts and connoisseurs are often called upon to advise sellers and collectors of older works and antiquities. Establishing true authorship is important to art historians, curators and critics and to sellers, buyers, dealers, investors, insurers and auctioneers. What are they, how are they used, who provides them and what is their legal status?Īuthentication of authorship of artworks has always been an important artistic and art business issue. Public and private collectors and art market professionals have started to request certificates of authenticity to accompany the transfer of ownership of works.

Certificate of authenticity auction template