Art Provenance With IOTA
This is an idea in motion and I welcome input and feedback from the community. I wish to address the primary concerns of art provenance in a simple and low-cost method which works for artists, owners and gallery goers — all concerned really. The following method might even allow for artists to continue collecting royalties on their work after it leaves their hands! Read on.
The primary concerns of provenance in art are establishing:
- Production, creation, or discovery circumstances and legitimacy
- Establishing history of ownership, custody and places of storage
- Establishing moral and legal validity of chain of custody
Provenance done right can go a long way towards destroying black markets for forgeries and thefts and can help the rightful owners or families reclaim ownership of artwork or other precious items taken by force. Provenance of art, antiquities, wine and other items of high value is clearly important. A clean provenance can sometimes increase an object’s sale price by an order of magnitude.
The question then is how to do provenance right?