The export is decided where the work stands, the admission where it arrives. One file must satisfy both.

ArtisDomus, the practice of Polina Surina, advises in Paris, Malta, the United Kingdom, Qatar and the Gulf. It acts for the owner alone: one engagement letter, one fee from the owner, one record. A work moving between Europe and the Gulf must satisfy two authorities that do not talk to each other, under rules written separately. What decides whether that goes well is a single set of documents, built before anything moves.

Published by ArtisDomus, written by Polina Surina.

Acting in both places takes four things: two separate permissions, insurance placed where the risk sits, a record that survives the move, and one instructing party.

Leaving the European Union needs a licence under the EU regulation. It sets categories with age and value thresholds, and three kinds of licence, each valid for a stated period. The Member State where the work lawfully is issues the licence, so the same work moves under a different administration depending on where it has been standing. In Belgium four authorities issue licences, and the location of the work decides which one. In France the categories above the threshold need a separate certificate. The State cannot take the work, but it can refuse the certificate and offer to buy it. In the United Kingdom, outside the EU system, an object of cultural interest above a certain age needs its own licence to leave.

Arriving in the Gulf is a question for customs, and heritage law plays no part in it. Temporary admission under the Common Customs Law of the GCC States runs for renewable periods against a guarantee, under stated heads of admission. The carnet is the other route, and it is narrower than most people assume. The six Gulf states accepted only certain annexes of the Convention on Temporary Admission, so a carnet covers an exhibition and little else. A free zone has no time limit at all, and leaving one counts as an import.

What costs money is that the two are independent. A licence to leave admits the work nowhere, and an admission does not make the departure lawful. A work can be admitted in the Gulf and still have been exported without a licence at the other end. The one who finds out is usually the owner, later.

The details are in Moving a collection from Europe to the Gulf: categories, thresholds, licence types, the carnet and the Gulf customs position, article by article. The export licence for leaving Belgium covers the four authorities and the location rule. Taking a work out of France covers the certificate, the time limits and the refusal procedure. The United Kingdom export licence and the artist’s resale right covers the prohibition, the class of objects and the open licences.

A collection split between two countries is two risks, usually two policies, and often two brokers who have never seen each other’s wording. The usual failure is a work that was at an address the schedule does not name on the day something happened to it. Claims refused over valuation are rarer.

One insurer’s policy wording, for example, covers the addresses in its schedule and nowhere else. It defines its geographical and territorial limits separately, and adds a temporary removal extension and a transit condition. It also puts duties on the insured about unoccupancy, inspection and the time allowed for notifying a claim. These clauses decide whether a move is covered, and they sit in the wording. The certificate sent to the owner leaves them out.

Settle five things in writing before a work leaves, and record the answers in the file. Agree which policy covers the work in transit, and from what moment. Fix the point at which risk passes between seller, shipper and owner. Name who must notify a loss, to whom and within what period. Check whether the destination address is already on a schedule or must be added first. And if the work is going out to be shown, know who holds the loan agreement.

The wording is set out clause by clause in insuring and cataloguing a collection split across two countries.

Insurers pay claims from the catalogue, and customs declarations are written from it. The two want different things from the same record. Four fields decide a move. Most collection records lack them, because nothing in a collection’s ordinary life asks for them.

The usual evidence also belongs in the file, where anyone can read it. That means provenance as a full ownership history, and the certificate of authenticity with a clear view of who it binds. It also means the catalogue raisonné position, where there is one. These documents are obtained at purchase: see what to check before you pay for a serious work.

ArtisDomus takes the instruction for both halves itself, across the United Kingdom and the Gulf.

When one firm advises in Europe and another in the Gulf, the usual failure is that the export side and the admission side hold different versions of the same facts. A conflict of law is almost never the cause. The value on the licence application and the value on the schedule differ. The address in the policy is the one before last. The certificate is with the party that did not move the work. Each firm has done its job, and still the file does not hold together.

Acting across both needs five things in place.

The practice’s refusals matter here too. It takes no mandate for a single work, so it is the wrong call for moving one picture. It takes no resale brokerage, so it never becomes a counterparty in a market it advises on. And it takes no commission from a seller, in any form or jurisdiction, so the fee is the same question on both sides of the corridor. See the full list of refusals. How an art advisor is paid explains why disclosure is the only part of the market anyone can check.