Art TracksCarnegie Museum of ArtJuly 24, 2015

The Art Tracks Team:

Tracey Berg-Fulton Data Nerd(@BergFulton)

David Newbury Lead Developer(@workergnome)

Travis SnyderCollections Database Administrator

Our Advisors:

Neil KulasHead of Digital

Louise (Lulu) Lippincott, Ph.D Curator, Fine Art

Costas KarakatsanisProvenance Researcher

And many other advisors

What is Art Tracks?

An Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) project to digitize and visualize provenance information.

—Three year project—80% complete

HAVEYOU SEENTHIS MAN?

Pietro Perugino, St. Augustine with Members of the Confraternity of Perugia, c. 1500. Carnegie Museum of Art, Acquired through the generosity of Mrs. Alan M. Scaife.

Augustus Wijnantz, Interieur van de Gotische Zaal, paleis Kneuterdijk, Den Haag, met de schilderijencollectie van Willem II, 1846, Rijksmuseum, Acquired 1995.

Digital Provenance Records at CMOA

Durand-Ruel, Paris, August 23, 1872 [1];Catholina Lambert, New Jersey;Lambert sale, American Art Association, Plaza Hotel, New York, NY, February 21, 1916 until February 24, 1916, no. 67; Durand-Ruel, Paris, until at least 1930; purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris, by June 1936 [2]; anonymous sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., February 25, 1970, no. 19 [3]; Sam Salz, Inc., New York, NY; purchased by Museum, May 1971.

NOTES: [1] bought from the artist. [2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945" (no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer). [3] "Highly Important Impressionist, Post-Impressionist & Modern Paintings and Drawings", illustrated.

What is good about Provenance right now?

—AAM standard.—Internet Archive, Gallica, HathiTrust, etc. —NEPIP portal.—Getty Provenance index.

Unlawful Appropriation

—Created before 1946—Were acquired by the museum

before 1932—underwent a change of

ownership between 1932 and 1946

—were or could have been in Europe between 1932-1946

What is good about Provenance right now?

—AAM standard.—Internet Archive, Gallica, HathiTrust, etc. —NEPIP portal.—Getty Provenance index.

What's not so good about provenance?

—Provenance isn’t searchable.—Provenance isn’t (really) standardized.—Provenance research is hard. And expensive. And

slow.

What are the existing global standards?AAM suggested standard

...the provenanace is listed in chronological order, beginning with the earliest known owner.Life dates of owners, if known, are enclosed in brackets.Uncertain information is indicated by the terms "possibly" or "probably" and explained in footnotes.Dealers, auction houses, or agents are enclosed in parentheses to distinguish them from private owners.Relationships between owners and methods of transactions are indicated by punctuation:a semicolon is used to indicate that the work passed directly between two owners(including dealers, auction houses, or agents),and a period is used to seperate two owners (including dealers, auction houses, or agents)if a direct transfer did not occur or is not known to have occured.Footnotes are used to document or clarify information.

Nancy H. Yeide, Konstantin Akinsha, and Amy L. Walsh. The AAM Guide to Provenance Research. American Association of Museum, Washington DC, 2001, pp. 33-34.

What are the existing global standards?

—Text, usually in the AAM standard form.—NGA, Smithsonian have structured records in

TMS.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

Breakingdown provenance

Acquisition Methods:

Controlled Vocabulary

—"purchased by"—"gift of"—"by descent to"

purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris, France, by 1936 [2];[2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945"(no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer).

Acquisition Methods:

Party:

Name, life dates, titles, relationships

—Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. [1909-1988]—Michel Monet, his son—Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook

purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris France, by 1936 [2];[2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945"(no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer).

Party:

Location:

Building, City, State, Country

—New York, NY—France—Highclere Castle, West Berkshire, England

purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris, France, by 1936 [2];[2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945"(no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer).

Location:

Dates:

Period of ownership

—January 1, 1995—until the 15th century—sometime between 1885 and 1895 until 1950

purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris, France, by 1936 [2];[2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945"(no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer).

John Doe, 1995

John Doe, by 1995

John Doe, after 1995

John Doe, until 1995

John Doe, until at least 1995

John Doe, until sometime before 1995

John Doe, in 1960

John Doe, 1950 until 2000

Footnotes:

Additional descriptive information

—Durand Ruel stock no. D1343—See curatorial file for more information—Her birth name was Ellen Mary Cassatt

purchased by Simon Bauer, Paris, France, by 1936 [2];[2] Listed and illustrated in "List of Property Removed from France during the War 1939-1945"(no. 7114, as belonging to Simon Bauer).

What should it look like?

{ "id": 1011873, "category": "Painting", "medium": "oil on canvas", "title": "The Full-Length Mirror", "accession_number": "65.17.1", "image": "http://it-svr-emu03/imucma/imu.php?request=multimedia&irn=10183", "creation_date": "1910-01-01", "artist": { "name": "Pierre Bonnard", "location": { "lat": 48.69096, "lng": 9.14062, "name": "Europe", "geonameId": 6255148 } },

What should it look like?

—JSON API—LIDO—Linked Open Data—Unstructured text blobs

JSON APIApplication Programming Interface

A machine readable interface for accessing the collections information at CMOA.

LIDOLightweight Information Describing Objects

XML based data formatCurrent best practice for museum data interchangeUsed by Google Art Project, among others

Linked Open DataCIDOC-CRMCIDOC Conceptual Reference Model

ICOM standard for museum Linked Open DataFor connecting to external informationFor publishing information for others to link toAspirational: future of museum data

Unstructured Text

Human readableWill need to be supported indefinitelyCurrent state of Collection Management Systems

How are we getting from here to there?

—CMOA provenance standard—museum_provenance—Elysa

CMOA provenance standard

Formalization of AAM standardDesigned for both human and machine readabilitySame structure, just stricter

Document available at:museumprovenance.org/standard

museum_provenancegithub.com/cmoa/museum_provenance

Elysanot yet releasedReleased June 24, 2015.

github.com/cmoa/elysa

Check yourself—Death is permanent.—Babies generally don't own

art.—Dates are tricky, but provide a

check and balance.—Timelining exhibition data

highlights opportunities for ownership clarification.

Simon Vouet, The Toilet of Venus, c. 1640, Carnegie Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Horace Binney Hare.

What have we done?

—Created a digital standard for provenance—Developed a way to digitally publish provenance

(almost)—Data visualizations to help inform

What have we learned?

—Linked Open Data is essential to do this well—We need to link our CMS and provenance via an

API—We need to think about institutional authority—We need a bibliography standard for provenance

What have we learned?

—Museums are not thinking about provenance in the context of digital humanities.

—The amount of information is intimidating.—Our data is not as good as we think it is.

What haven’t we done?

—Fixed the provenance research problem—User-friendly search interface—Made sharing this information easy—Linked the data to other authorities

Next Steps:

—EDTF Support.—LOD for entity disambiguation.—Bibliography support.—Deploy Elysa at other institutions.—Start working with multi-museum collections.

—The Northbrook Project.

How can you help?

—Connect our institutions.—Students—Contacts—Shared data

—Give us software feedback. —Publish your provenance. —Help others find provenance (github.com/

provenancecollaborative)

STAY INTOUCHmuseumprovenance.orggithub.com/cmoaTwitter: @BergFulton, @Workergnome

Detail of H. Rebele, Bob, the Vigilant Fire Company's Dog, 1863, Carnegie Museum of Art, By appropriation.