You can still ask the artist. Put the answer on the invoice.

With a living artist, you can put the question to the person who made the work. The studio keeps its own records, and the chain of owners is short enough to read in an afternoon. ArtisDomus checks a work in seven steps, starting with the artist and ending with the certificate.

Published by ArtisDomus, written by Polina Surina.

This advantage fades quickly, and nobody is obliged to answer. So ask early.

French law gives the buyer one useful presumption. Unless there is proof to the contrary, the author is the person or persons under whose name the work is disclosed (Article L. 113-1, code de la propriété intellectuelle). Disclosed here means made public. So in France it matters in law who made the work public, and under what name.

The United Kingdom offers something narrower and physical. The author has the right to be identified as the author of the work (section 77(1), Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988). The right is infringed only if the author has asserted it under section 78. For public exhibition, section 78(3)(a) gives one way to do this. When the first owner parts with possession of the original, the author’s name may be put on it, or on a frame, mount or other thing attached to it. That name then binds anyone who later holds the original, whether or not the name is still present or visible.

The 1988 Act also protects a person whose name is put on a work falsely. This moral right against false attribution lasts until twenty years after the person’s death.

Two of these rules turn on a name and a document, and a buyer can ask to see both before paying. For the copyright the artist keeps after the sale, see who owns copyright in a commissioned artwork.

At Art Basel, the Exhibition Regulations put the guarantee on the exhibitor. The exhibitor guarantees to the fair and to any buyer that every artwork it shows is authentic and of legal provenance (clause 21.7, Basel 2020; clause 20.5, Miami Beach 2023).

Clause 20.5 at Miami Beach also says what role the gallery plays in the sale. The exhibitor promises to show only two kinds of work. Either it owns the work, or the owner has duly authorised it to offer and sell the work in its own name and for the owner’s account. In that case the price must be one the owner has approved. So selling for an owner, on consignment, is normal and declared. A buyer may ask which of the two the seller is.

At TEFAF, the vetting and the general terms pull in different directions. The vetting committees examine authenticity, condition and attribution. Yet the terms exclude liability for the description, quality, authenticity, attribution, provenance, title and condition of what is sold. Responsibility for the whole process of selecting, exhibiting, buying and selling stays with the exhibitor who sells and the visitor who buys.

So the guarantee a buyer can rely on is the seller’s own. For a consumer, section 17 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 adds three promises. The trader must have the right to sell the goods when ownership is to pass. The goods must be free of any charge or encumbrance that was neither disclosed to nor known by the consumer before the contract, and stay free until ownership passes. And the consumer must enjoy quiet possession, the right to keep the goods undisturbed. The Act does not apply where the buyer is a company or a family office.

When goods are sold by description, the contract includes a term that the goods will match it (section 11, Consumer Rights Act 2015). This covers the gallery case, where goods are on display and the consumer picks from what is shown (subsection (3)). Information the trader gives about the main characteristics of the goods is also a term of the contract (subsection (4)). The rule to remember is subsection (5). A change to that information, made before the contract or later, has no effect unless the consumer and the trader expressly agree it. Public auctions are treated differently (subsection (6)).

France regulates the words themselves. If the buyer asks, a seller of a work of art must provide a document (décret n° 81-255 du 3 mars 1981). The seller’s agent and the officer running a public auction have the same duty. The document can be an invoice, a receipt, a sale note or an extract from the auction record. It states what was claimed about the nature, composition, origin and age of the item sold.

Under Article 3, an artist’s signature or stamp guarantees that the named artist is indeed the author, unless it comes with an express reservation about authenticity. The words par or de before the artist’s name give the same guarantee. So does the name followed directly by the designation or title of the work.

The decree also sets the weight of every softer wording, from attribué à down to d’après. Under Article 7, six of these phrases give no particular guarantee about the artist, the date or the school. The full scale is under certificate of authenticity. The word the seller chooses is the promise the seller makes.

In the United Kingdom the invoice also has a legal minimum. Among other details, it must describe the goods well enough to identify them (regulation 14, Value Added Tax Regulations 1995). An invoice that just says “painting” identifies nothing and promises nothing.

French tax law lists what counts as a work of art, and the tax authority says the list is closed (Article 98 A of annexe III, Code général des impôts). Sculpture casts qualify in an edition limited to eight copies, supervised by the artist or the artist’s successors in title. Unique ceramic pieces must be made entirely by the artist and signed by the artist. Enamels on copper are limited to eight numbered copies signed by the artist or the art studio. Photographs must be taken by the artist and printed by the artist or under the artist’s supervision. They must be signed and numbered, up to thirty copies across all formats and supports.

The United Kingdom sets similar limits when it values imports. Section 21 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 defines a work of art for that purpose, more narrowly than the trade does. Sculpture casts and tapestries are limited to eight, enamels on copper to eight, and photographs to thirty. Technical drawings, maps, hand-decorated manufactured articles and theatrical scenery never qualify.

So ask for the edition number, the size of the edition and who supervised the printing. Two tax authorities already treat these as facts that matter. The answers belong in the description on the invoice. For the French rates and the rest of the French definition, see VAT on art bought in a French gallery.

A catalogue raisonné is the list of an artist’s works that scholars treat as complete. Each work is numbered, described, dated and traced through its owners, exhibitions and literature. No law or official standard defines it.

The French decree of 3 March 1981 does not mention a catalogue raisonné and gives it no weight as evidence.

Including a work means the compiler believes it is by the artist. Excluding it means the compiler believes it is not. Either way, it is the opinion of a named person or committee. The next edition can change it, and neither is a legal ruling.

For a living artist there is usually no such entry. A catalogue raisonné is compiled by scholars, a foundation or an estate, and it claims to be complete. For a working artist, the records kept by the studio and the gallery take its place. See also the glossary entry catalogue raisonné.

The ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums defines provenance as the full history and ownership of an item, from its discovery or creation to the present day. It is the record through which authenticity and ownership are determined. Article 2.3 of the Code requires due diligence to establish the full history of the item since discovery or production. Article 2.2 adds that evidence of lawful ownership in a country is not necessarily valid title.

The same Code defines valid title as an indisputable right to ownership, backed by full provenance since discovery or production. For a work made in the last few years, that record is within reach. Every owner in the chain is alive and can confirm their part of it.

Next to the ownership chain, the file should hold an identification record. Object ID is an internationally recognised standard for identifying and recording cultural goods. The Getty Information Institute began it in 1993 and launched it in 1997. The International Council of Museums has held the licence to promote it since October 2004. It records nine things: type of object, materials and techniques, measurement, inscriptions and markings, distinguishing features, title, subject, date or period, and maker.

Ownership history is not among the nine. Object ID tells you which object this is. Where it has been belongs in the provenance file.

For where the market’s single 1970 cut-off comes from, and what the Convention behind it actually says, see provenance. When a dealer speaks of due diligence, it means a duty to check the customer. That duty tells you nothing about the object.

A certificate of authenticity is a written statement that a named work is by a named artist. In France, a person who certifies a work in the course of a sale can be held liable by name. Article L. 321-17 of the Code de commerce says who. Operators of voluntary auction sales are liable for what they do during or in connection with valuations and sales. So are the public and ministerial officers entitled to conduct judicial and voluntary sales, and the experts who help them describe, present and value goods. Any clause that tries to exclude or limit this liability is banned and treated as never written. A civil claim must be brought within five years of the sale or the valuation.

So a certificate protects you only a little. It does not make a work authentic. It does not bind the next scholar, committee or court, and it does not pass with the object as a property right. It gives its holder a claim against the person who signed it. That claim is worth what the signer can pay, and it lasts until the time limit for claims runs out.

That is why ArtisDomus asks for the certificate last and starts with the questions that bind the seller. Seven steps, in this order.

1. The artist or the studio, in writing, before the price is agreed. What they will confirm and put their name to. 2. Who is selling. Owner or consignee, and what the seller guarantees in its own name. 3. The name under which the work was made public. Check the exhibition, the press release and the gallery’s own publication. In France this matters in law. 4. The description you were shown. Price list, label, catalogue entry and correspondence, dated and kept as you saw them. 5. The edition. The number, the size of the edition, who printed it and who supervised the printing. 6. The ownership history since the work left the studio, with each owner’s own documents. 7. The certificate. Check who signed it and what that person is worth.

Two of the seven cost nothing while the seller still wants the sale: the artist’s answer and the edition record. Both are hard to get once the money has moved. ArtisDomus opens the file before the price is agreed, while the seller still has a reason to answer.

What to check before you pay for a serious work · Reference. Eight checks that apply to any purchase.

Starting a collection, and choosing who advises you · Reference. The four documents a first year produces, and the order to finish them in.

A summary of the law for general information. It is not legal or tax advice.