Art Transaction Checklist: Title and Provenance, Authentication Evidence, Consignment Terms, Reproduction Rights, and Export Restrictions

By Casey Scott McKay · 2026-06-03

This checklist runs an art transaction from description to delivery, in the order that lets each step stop the deal cheaply before the next one costs money. Phase one reads the description as a legal document and translates the catalogue vocabulary that describes attribution without warranting it. Phase two runs provenance as a legal exercise rather than a scholarly courtesy, weighting the two gap categories that generate claims decades later. The middle phases cover warranty scope and accrual, consignment perfection against dealer insolvency, auction mechanics including reserves and guarantees, and the copyright position that does not travel with the object. The closing phases handle editions and certificates, export and import permissions, sanctions and money laundering screening, collection records, and what to do when a work is questioned.

IP and Technology > Copyright | Checklist | Published 3 June 2026 - Updated 5 July 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This checklist runs an art transaction from description to delivery, in the order that lets each step stop the deal cheaply before the next one costs money. Phase one reads the description as a legal document and translates the catalogue vocabulary that describes attribution without warranting it. Phase two runs provenance as a legal exercise rather than a scholarly courtesy, weighting the two gap categories that generate claims decades later. The middle phases cover warranty scope and accrual, consignment perfection against dealer insolvency, auction mechanics including reserves and guarantees, and the copyright position that does not travel with the object. The closing phases handle editions and certificates, export and import permissions, sanctions and money laundering screening, collection records, and what to do when a work is questioned.

Keywords: art transaction checklist · catalogue terminology · warranty scope and accrual · provenance gap analysis · stolen art register search · cultural property compliance · consignment perfection · artist dealer trust statutes · auction conditions review · buyer premium and reserve · copyright separate from object · reproduction licence · edition disclosure · condition and restoration · export and import permissions · sanctions screening · collection inventory · conservation records · succession planning · forgery response

How to use this checklist

| Field | Detail | |---|---| | Who runs it | Counsel with the collector, dealer, or institution, plus an independent conservator where value justifies | | When | Before every acquisition; on every consignment; annually across a collection | | Time required | Days for a straightforward purchase; weeks where provenance gaps exist | | Gates | Register search recorded; provenance gaps explained; warranty scope agreed before payment | | Output | A diligence file, a negotiated sale document, and an inventory entry with the full record attached | | Companion documents | Advising in the Art Market and Is It Real? |

The matter. A collector is buying a mid-century European painting for four million dollars from a dealer at an international fair. The catalogue entry describes it as "attributed to" the artist, the provenance begins with "private collection, Switzerland" and picks up documented ownership from 1962, and there is no exhibition or literature history. The dealer holds it on consignment from an owner it will not name and requires payment to an entity in a third country. The collector wants to reproduce the work in a book about the collection. The dealer's invoice is one page. The fair closes in two days.

Phase 1. Read the description

[ ] Separate the statements. Heading, medium, date, dimensions, provenance, exhibition history, literature, condition. Why. Each carries a different warranty consequence and only some are usually warranted. Trap. Treating the catalogue entry as a single representation.
[ ] Translate the attribution vocabulary. "By" is full attribution; "attributed to" means probably; "studio of" means under supervision; "circle of" means a close contemporary; "follower of" means in the style, possibly much later; "after" means a copy. Why. It is a legal vocabulary and the difference is the price. Trap. Reading "attributed to" as a formality.
[ ] Distinguish affirmations of fact from opinion. Why. A description of the goods creates an express warranty; a hedged opinion generally does not. Trap. Oral assurances that are not reflected in the document.
[ ] Ask why the work is unrecorded. Why. A significant work by a documented artist with no exhibition history and no literature requires an explanation before anything else is spent. Trap. Accepting "it has always been in a private collection" as the answer.
[ ] [Gate] Do not proceed on a catalogue entry alone. Obtain the seller's written description of what is being sold. Trap. A one-page invoice that describes the work in four words.

Phase 2. Provenance as a legal exercise

[ ] Reconstruct the chain and mark the gaps. Why. Gaps, not entries, are where the risk sits. Trap. Accepting a provenance that reads continuously because it lists names without dates.
[ ] Weight the wartime period for European works. Why. Federal legislation extended the time available for claims to recover art lost through Nazi persecution and directs that claims be decided on the merits. Trap. Treating a 1933 to 1945 gap as an ordinary documentation shortfall.
[ ] Weight the export date for antiquities. Why. United States v. Schultz, following United States v. McClain, treats material exported contrary to a foreign patrimony law as stolen for the purposes of the National Stolen Property Act. Trap. Relying on a dealer's assertion that a piece left its country of origin "before the law".
[ ] Check import restrictions under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act for designated archaeological and ethnological material. Trap. Assuming the restriction applies only to recent exports.
[ ] Search the stolen art registers and record the search. Databases used, date, search terms, results. Why. A documented search evidences good faith and affects the analysis in several jurisdictions. Trap. A search performed and not recorded.
[ ] Model the accrual rule that would apply. Why. The demand and refusal rule provides that a claim against a good faith purchaser accrues only on demand and refusal, potentially decades later, with laches as the counterweight. Trap. Assuming a long possession period defeats a claim.
[ ] Assess the diligence standard at the time of acquisition. Why. The standard expected has risen, and a possessor is judged against contemporaneous expectations. Trap. Applying yesterday's norms to today's purchase.

Phase 3. Warranty scope and period

[ ] Identify exactly what is warranted. Why. Auction limited authenticity warranties typically cover only the artist attribution in the catalogue heading, for a fixed period, for the original buyer, on return in the same condition. Trap. Assuming the warranty reaches date, medium, provenance, or condition.
[ ] Establish when the claim accrues. Why. Warranty claims commonly accrue on delivery rather than on discovery, and a four-year period expires long before an attribution is questioned. Trap. Discovering the accrual rule after the article is published.
[ ] Negotiate period and accrual at purchase. Why. It is achievable when the seller wants the sale and unobtainable afterwards. Trap. Accepting the standard form because the transaction is time-pressured.
[ ] Ask who stands behind the warranty. Dealer, consignor, or nobody. Why. A warranty from a dealer that is a special purpose entity is a paragraph. Trap. A warranty given by a party that will not be traceable in six years.
[ ] Obtain condition disclosure in writing. Why. Undisclosed restoration is the most common complaint after attribution. Trap. A verbal assurance that the work is "in good condition for its age".
[ ] Commission independent inspection where value justifies. Why. The seller's condition report is a starting point and is usually disclaimed. Trap. Buying from an image at a fair or a viewing room with no inspection right.
[ ] Reserve a short post-delivery inspection period with a right of return for material discrepancy. Trap. Waiving inspection to secure the work.

Phase 4. Consignment

[ ] Treat consignment as a secured transaction question. Why. Goods delivered to a merchant dealing in goods of that kind may create a security interest, and an unperfected consignor can lose the work to the dealer's creditors. Trap. Assuming ownership is enough.
[ ] File a financing statement against the dealer and notify prior secured parties. Why. It takes an hour and is the difference between recovering the work and joining the unsecured queue. Trap. Deferring because the dealer is long-established.
[ ] Check whether an artist-dealer consignment statute applies. Why. Many states hold works delivered by an artist to a dealer in trust, outside the reach of the dealer's creditors, with proceeds as trust funds. Trap. Assuming those protections extend to a collector consigning to the secondary market.
[ ] Draft the terms. Work, term, minimum price, commission, insurance and risk, storage and location, permission to move, payment timing, inspection, return on demand. Trap. A one-line receipt.
[ ] Require short payment with segregated proceeds. Why. Slow payment precedes every gallery insolvency. Trap. Payment "after the buyer settles", with no outside date.
[ ] Prohibit sub-consignment without consent and require location reporting. Why. A work moved to a second dealer without the owner's knowledge is far harder to recover. Trap. No obligation to say where the work physically is.

Phase 5. Auction

[ ] Read the conditions of sale before bidding. Why. They are the most sophisticated documents in the market and they allocate every risk. Trap. Bidding on the strength of the catalogue.
[ ] Treat the estimate as marketing. Why. It is not a valuation and is not warranted. Trap. Using the estimate as a value for insurance or financing.
[ ] Understand the reserve and seller bidding. Why. The auctioneer may bid on the seller's behalf up to the reserve, which the conditions disclose. Trap. Assuming every bid in the room is a buyer.
[ ] Identify guarantees and irrevocable bids in the catalogue symbols. Why. Both are financing arrangements requiring disclosure, and both mean a bidder may hold an economic interest different from an ordinary buyer's. Trap. Ignoring the symbol key.
[ ] Add the buyer's premium to every projection. Why. The acquisition cost is materially higher than the hammer price. Trap. Budgeting to the hammer.
[ ] Diarise the rescission window. Why. The limited warranty period is short and unforgiving. Trap. A five-year window discovered in year six.
[ ] Read private sale documents separately. Why. Auction conditions and the limited authenticity warranty do not automatically apply to private treaty sales arranged by the same house. Trap. Assuming the house's standard protections travel.

Phase 6. Copyright and reproduction

[ ] State in the sale document what is and is not conveyed. Why. 17 U.S.C. § 202 separates the object from the copyright in both directions. Trap. Silence, which the buyer reads one way and the seller the other.
[ ] Identify the copyright owner — usually the artist or the estate — before planning any reproduction. Trap. Assuming the seller can license what it is selling.
[ ] Understand the display limitation. Why. 17 U.S.C. § 109 permits the owner of a lawfully made copy to display it to viewers present where it is located. Trap. Reading the display right as covering a website.
[ ] Obtain a reproduction licence for catalogues, books, and websites. Images, permitted uses, territory, term, credit, and approval over context. Trap. Reproducing a work in a collection book without a licence, which is the single most common infringement by collectors.
[ ] Handle photography correctly. Why. A faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional work lacks originality — Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, applying Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service — so no new copyright arises, but the underlying work's copyright still governs. Trap. Commissioning a photograph and assuming it can be used freely.
[ ] Advise appropriation artists against the current framework. Why. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith narrowed the transformativeness reading encouraged by Cariou v. Prince, leaving Rogers v. Koons undisturbed. Trap. Advice based on the pre-2023 position.
[ ] Check moral rights. Why. 17 U.S.C. § 106A gives attribution and integrity rights in works of visual art, waivable only in writing, with specific treatment under 17 U.S.C. § 113 for works incorporated in buildings. Trap. A renovation plan that treats a mural as decoration.
[ ] Explain that there is no federal resale right, following Close v. Sotheby's. Trap. An artist expecting a royalty stream that does not exist.

Phase 7. Editions, certificates, and condition

[ ] Treat edition size as a representation and check the disclosure requirements applicable to fine art multiples — edition, process, year, and whether the plate was destroyed. Trap. An edition statement with no supporting documentation.
[ ] Ask about proofs. Why. Artist's and printer's proofs sit outside the numbered edition and expand supply. Trap. A stated edition of fifty with twenty proofs.
[ ] Scrutinise posthumous casts. Why. Casting from original moulds decades after the artist's death produces contested attributions and heavily discounted values. Trap. A posthumous cast described simply as "by".
[ ] Assess certificates by issuer. Why. An artist's signature is evidence; a gallery's certificate is that gallery's statement; an unrelated party's certificate is a marketing device. Trap. Paying for the certificate rather than the work.
[ ] Obtain the conservation history. Why. Every intervention affects value and disclosure obligations. Trap. A work that has been relined and cleaned with no record.
[ ] Photograph the reverse before anything is done to the work. Why. Labels, inscriptions, stencils, and stamps are the primary provenance evidence and are destroyed by relining, re-stretching, and reframing. Trap. Reframing on receipt.

Phase 8. Export, import, and money movement

[ ] Confirm export permission from the current jurisdiction before payment. Why. Many countries restrict export of nationally significant works and may refuse a licence. Trap. Paying for a work that cannot leave.
[ ] Confirm import permissibility, including cultural property designations and the stolen property analysis. Trap. A shipment seized on arrival.
[ ] Check customs classification and duty. Why. Works of art enjoy favourable treatment that depends on definitional requirements including originality and numbered limits for multiples. Trap. A decorative object classified as art.
[ ] Screen the counterparty and the beneficial owner against sanctions lists. Why. Dealing in a work owned or controlled by a sanctioned person is prohibited regardless of knowledge, and layered ownership is common. Trap. Screening the dealer and not the undisclosed principal.
[ ] Decline payment to or from unrelated third parties. Why. It is the single clearest money laundering indicator and it is routine in this market. Trap. Accepting a payment routing instruction at a fair because the alternative is losing the work.
[ ] Understand the source of funds and record the enquiry. Trap. A file with no record of the question having been asked.
[ ] Read the storage contract where the work will be held in a specialist facility. Why. It is frequently the only document governing custody, insurance, and jurisdiction. Trap. A work worth more than the building governed by a warehousing form.

Phase 9. Records and collection management

[ ] Build a usable inventory. Object, artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, edition, acquisition date, seller, price, location, condition, insurance value, file reference, and photographs of front, back, signature, and labels. Trap. A spreadsheet of titles and values.
[ ] Keep the whole file with the inventory entry. Invoices, correspondence, condition reports, conservation records, appraisals, register searches, and any authentication opinion. Why. It is the difference between an asset and an object. Trap. Documents held by an adviser who later retires.
[ ] Keep insurance values current and understand the basis. Agreed value, market value, and replacement cost behave differently on a loss. Trap. A schedule unrevised for a decade.
[ ] Review the storage and lending position annually. Why. Works on long-term loan, in storage, or with dealers on approval accumulate silently. Trap. No inventory reconciliation against physical location.
[ ] Plan succession specifically. Which works are to be sold, retained, or given, and the division mechanism where multiple beneficiaries are involved. Why. An estate that must sell quickly sells badly, and division by value requires appraisal at exactly the moment appraisal is contested. Trap. Leaving the mechanism to be agreed after death.
[ ] Retain records far beyond the ordinary period. Why. The claim arrives after the file would have been destroyed. Trap. A retention policy written for commercial documents.

Phase 10. When a work is questioned

[ ] Preserve everything immediately. Purchase file, correspondence, the work, packaging, and documentation. Do not clean, restore, or re-photograph. Trap. A conservator instructed before counsel.
[ ] Establish the limitation position first. Why. Whether a warranty claim remains available, and against whom, determines the whole strategy. Trap. Investigating for months while a period expires.
[ ] Map every party in the chain. Immediate seller, intermediaries, authenticating experts, auction house, prior owners whose warranties survive. Trap. Focusing on the immediate seller alone.
[ ] Commission independent analysis before asserting anything. Why. A claim asserted on a scholar's article and contradicted by analysis is worse than no claim. Trap. A demand letter sent on a press report.
[ ] Weigh the publicity consequence. Why. Once publicly questioned, a work is unsaleable regardless of outcome, so a client with a viable claim may still prefer quiet resolution. Trap. A public filing that destroys the asset the claim is about.
[ ] Notify insurers, expecting a narrow response. Why. Fine art policies generally cover physical loss and damage rather than the discovery that a work is not what it was said to be. Trap. Assuming cover.
[ ] Assess the criminal dimension separately where a forgery ring may be involved, because parallel proceedings affect timing, evidence, and recovery prospects. Trap. Civil strategy set without regard to asset restraint.

Phase 11. Working the example matter

[ ] Do not close before the fair does. Why. Every problem in this transaction is a reason to slow down, and the two-day deadline is the seller's pressure rather than a fact about the work. A deposit with an inspection and diligence period is achievable; a completed purchase is not reversible. Trap. Treating the closing date as fixed because the stand is coming down.
[ ] Read "attributed to" as the price. Why. The seller is describing an uncertain attribution without warranting it, at four million dollars, on a work with no literature or exhibition history. That combination is the market's standard warning configuration. Trap. Assuming the fair's vetting process resolved it. Vetting is a quality control on the fair, not a warranty to the buyer.
[ ] Treat the pre-1962 gap as the first question. Why. A mid-century European painting whose provenance begins with an unnamed Swiss private collection and picks up in 1962 has an unexplained wartime and immediate post-war history, which is the precise fact pattern that generates restitution claims decades later. Trap. Accepting "Swiss private collection" as a provenance entry rather than as an absence of one.
[ ] Search the registers and record it before proceeding further. Why. It is inexpensive, fast, and evidence of good faith if the work is later claimed. Trap. Searching after purchase.
[ ] Require the consignor to be named, or decline. Why. The buyer cannot assess title, cannot assess sanctions exposure, and cannot identify who stands behind any warranty. An undisclosed principal in a four-million-dollar cross-border transaction is not a confidentiality preference; it is an unassessable risk. Trap. Accepting the dealer's assurance that the consignor is "well known".
[ ] Refuse payment to an unrelated entity in a third country. Why. It is the clearest money laundering indicator available and it defeats any later attempt to trace or recover. Trap. Agreeing because it is presented as a tax or administrative convenience.
[ ] Replace the one-page invoice. Why. It needs to state the attribution, the provenance as known, what is warranted and for how long, the accrual rule, the condition disclosure, and the copyright position. Trap. Accepting the invoice and relying on the catalogue entry.
[ ] Deal with the book separately. Why. Reproducing the work in a collection book requires a licence from the copyright owner, which is the artist or the estate and not the dealer. 17 U.S.C. § 202 settles it. Trap. Assuming the purchase includes reproduction rights, which is the most common collector infringement.
[ ] Confirm export from the fair's jurisdiction and import to the buyer's before payment, including any cultural property designation. Trap. Paying for a work that cannot lawfully move.
[ ] [Gate] Decline unless the consignor is identified, the provenance gap is explained, the payment routing is regularised, and the warranty is documented. Why. Any one of these alone would justify caution; together they describe a transaction that should not proceed on its current terms. Trap. Proceeding because the work is desirable and the opportunity is presented as unique.

Phase 12. Selling

[ ] Give only the warranty you can support. Why. A seller's exposure is the representation it makes, and the market's hedged vocabulary exists precisely to describe uncertain knowledge accurately. Trap. Upgrading an attribution to improve the price.
[ ] Distinguish what you know from where you read it. Why. A provenance derived from a previous invoice is a representation about a document, not about the chain of ownership. Trap. Repeating a prior seller's provenance as your own knowledge.
[ ] Disclose restoration and condition. Why. Non-disclosure of significant restoration is the most common complaint after attribution, and the record usually exists. Trap. Relying on the buyer's inspection to surface it.
[ ] Clear encumbrances before committing. Consignment interests, security interests, and any restitution enquiry. Why. Unwinding a sale is far harder than declining one. Trap. Selling a work that a lender has a perfected interest in.
[ ] Consider what images you are supplying. Why. A seller providing photographs for the buyer's catalogue is licensing something it may not own. Trap. Supplying a photographer's images with no licence to pass on.
[ ] Retain the file beyond the warranty period. Why. The claim arrives after the ordinary retention period would have expired. Trap. A file destroyed on schedule.

Phase 13. Institutions

[ ] Apply the acquisition policy as a constraint, not an aspiration. Why. Provenance standards for antiquities and wartime diligence are self-imposed and enforced by professional sanction. Trap. A committee approval that did not test the policy.
[ ] Read donor agreements before planning anything. Display obligations, naming rights, sale restrictions, reversion provisions. Why. They outlive everyone who negotiated them. Trap. A reinstallation that breaches a forty-year-old gift agreement.
[ ] Treat deaccessioning as a governance question. Why. Proceeds are conventionally restricted to acquisitions and departures produce sustained controversy. Trap. A sale to fund operations announced without preparation.
[ ] Negotiate loan agreements rather than accepting the borrower's form. Insurance, condition reporting, packing, couriers, display conditions, photography. Trap. A standard form signed by a registrar under time pressure.
[ ] Use immunity from seizure for qualifying international loans. Why. It is the mechanism by which works with contested provenance travel without attachment. Trap. An application made after the work has arrived.
[ ] Plan digitisation against the copyright position. Why. Owning a work confers no right to reproduce it. Trap. A collection-wide digitisation programme launched without a rights assessment.
[ ] Separate the restitution streams. Wartime expropriation, colonial-era acquisition, archaeological material, and indigenous cultural items have different evidential standards and decision-makers. Trap. One policy applied to all four.

Phase 14. Artists and estates

[ ] Confirm copyright stays with the artist absent written assignment, and passes to the estate with licensing and derivative rights. Trap. A gallery treating sale of the work as sale of the rights.
[ ] Paper the gallery relationship. Territory, exclusivity, commission, reproduction and promotion rights, catalogue inclusion, return of unsold work, payment timing, termination. Why. These are routinely governed by custom. Trap. A decade-long relationship with no written terms.
[ ] Plan the archive during the artist's lifetime. Studio records, correspondence, sketchbooks, photographs. Why. They establish provenance and support attribution, and their dispersal damages the market permanently. Trap. An archive divided among heirs.
[ ] Address the foundation's structural conflict where an entity holds works, authenticates works, and benefits from the market in them. Trap. Authentication and inventory held by the same committee.
[ ] Plan succession early. Why. The estate becomes the market's gatekeeper for authentication, catalogue compilation, licensing, exhibition approval, and archive access. Trap. Succession planning that addresses the works and ignores the rights.
[ ] Explain the resale position. Why. There is no federal resale right after Close v. Sotheby's, and contractual participation binds only the immediate buyer. Trap. An artist relying on an expectation of ongoing participation.
[ ] Handle commissions and site-specific work at the outset. What happens on renovation, redevelopment, sale, or demolition; the 17 U.S.C. § 113 framework for works incorporated in buildings; maintenance and conservation; attribution and signage; de-installation. Trap. A commission agreement silent on the building's future.

Phase 15. Documents this checklist should produce

[ ] A diligence file containing the recorded register search, the provenance analysis with gaps identified, the condition report, conservation history, and photographs of the reverse. Why. It is the evidence of good faith and the basis of any later claim. Trap. Diligence performed and not recorded.
[ ] A sale document stating attribution, provenance as known, warranty scope and accrual, condition disclosure, copyright position, and delivery and risk terms. Trap. An invoice.
[ ] A perfected consignment file where applicable, with the agreement, the financing statement, notification to prior secured parties, and location reports. Trap. An agreement with no filing.
[ ] A reproduction licence where any image use is contemplated, covering images, uses, territory, term, credit, and approval over context. Trap. A licence obtained after publication.
[ ] An inventory entry with the full file attached, capable of being understood by someone reading it in thirty years. Why. That is the realistic horizon for these questions. Trap. An entry that records the price and nothing else.

Phase 16. Fairs, viewing rooms, and cross-border purchases

[ ] Establish the governing law before the invoice is written. Why. A buyer, a seller, and a fair in three jurisdictions produce three candidate systems with materially different rules on good faith purchase, limitation, and specific recovery. Trap. A contract with no governing law clause.
[ ] Do not treat fair vetting as diligence. Why. It is a quality control operated by the fair for the fair, not a warranty to any buyer. Trap. Reliance expressed in a later claim.
[ ] Check the temporary import position. Why. Works brought to a fair under temporary arrangements carry customs consequences that a sale can disturb. Trap. A sale that converts a temporary import into a permanent one without the paperwork.
[ ] Reserve inspection rights on any purchase made from an image. Why. Viewing room purchases without inspection produce the highest rate of condition disputes. Trap. Waiving inspection to secure the work.
[ ] Scrutinise payment routing. Why. Fair transactions frequently route payment to a different entity in a different jurisdiction, raising sanctions, money laundering, and enforcement questions. Trap. Accepting the routing at the point of sale.
[ ] Keep the fair's documentation. Stand number, catalogue entry, vetting record. Why. It is evidence and it disappears when the fair closes. Trap. Relying on the dealer to retain it.

Phase 17. Instructing experts

[ ] Separate attribution and valuation instructions. Why. They answer different questions using different methods, and combining them weakens both. Trap. One report doing both jobs.
[ ] Instruct on the question actually in issue. "Is this by the artist" and "would the market accept this as by the artist" can have different answers, and the second is often the commercial question. Trap. A technically correct opinion that does not address the loss.
[ ] Provide the full file including adverse material. Why. An expert who meets an adverse document in cross-examination is worth less than one who addressed it. Trap. Curated instructions.
[ ] Agree the scientific protocol before the work is touched. Sampling location, method, comparators, reporting standard, and written authority for destructive sampling. Trap. Analysis commissioned by telephone.
[ ] Address the expert's own exposure. Why. Authenticators have been sued for negative opinions and several now require indemnities and confidentiality or decline entirely. Trap. Discovering the condition after instruction.
[ ] Keep the scholarly and litigation roles distinct. Why. An expert who has published on the work is a different proposition from one instructed for the dispute. Trap. Assuming the published view will be repeated under scrutiny.

Phase 18. Digital and time-based works

[ ] State what is sold. File, instruction set, display apparatus, licence, or a combination. Why. A great many transactions in this space did not. Trap. A sale document borrowed from a painting purchase.
[ ] Allocate migration and re-fabrication. Why. Works dependent on obsolete hardware or discontinued platforms require active maintenance, and whether the artist, estate, or owner may perform it is a conservation and integrity question under 17 U.S.C. § 106A. Trap. An obligation nobody holds.
[ ] Do not treat a ledger entry as title. Why. A token transfer record evidences a transaction in the token; whether copyright or exhibition rights travel depends on attached terms that are frequently absent. Trap. Buying a token and assuming rights.
[ ] Recognise reproduction as the default state, which makes the contractual and technical controls the whole value proposition. Trap. Scarcity assumed from the medium.
[ ] Ask the same underlying questions. Who made it, who owned it, what is being sold, what is warranted, what happens if the answer is wrong. Trap. Treating a new medium as a new legal framework.

Phase 19. Annual review

[ ] Reconcile the inventory against physical location. Why. Works on loan, in storage, or with dealers on approval accumulate silently. Trap. An inventory that records where a work was placed rather than where it is.
[ ] Refresh insurance values and confirm the basis. Agreed value, market value, replacement cost. Trap. A schedule unchanged since acquisition.
[ ] Re-run register searches on significant holdings. Why. Databases are updated, and a work clear at purchase may not be clear now. Trap. A single search treated as permanent.
[ ] Review consignments out. Location, payment status, and whether filings remain effective. Trap. A filing that lapsed while the work was still with the dealer.
[ ] Review reproduction licences against actual use. Why. Websites, publications, and social use expand beyond what was licensed. Trap. A licence for a catalogue relied on for a merchandise programme.
[ ] Check the succession plan against the current collection. Trap. A plan referring to works long sold.

Phase 20. A note on proportion

[ ] Scale the diligence to the value and the risk profile, not to the client's enthusiasm. Why. A five-thousand-dollar print by a living artist bought from their gallery needs an invoice with a description; a four-million-dollar attributed work with a provenance gap needs everything in this checklist. Trap. One process applied to both.
[ ] Always do four things regardless of value. Get a written description, search the registers, photograph the reverse, and keep the file. Why. Together they cost an hour and they are the four omissions that account for most of what goes wrong. Trap. Skipping them because the transaction is small, which is how a collection accumulates two hundred undocumented objects.

Outcome. A diligence file containing the recorded register search, the provenance gap analysis, the condition and conservation record, and photographs of the reverse; a sale document stating attribution, provenance as known, warranty scope and accrual, condition disclosure, and the copyright position; a perfected consignment where applicable; and an inventory entry that will still make sense to someone reading it in thirty years.

The five things people get wrong

One. Reading "attributed to" as a formality. It is the market's way of describing an attribution without warranting it, and the price difference between it and "by" is the measure of the uncertainty being transferred to the buyer. Clients who do not know the vocabulary are buying a different thing from the one they think they are buying.

Two. Letting the warranty period run from delivery. Attribution questions surface when a scholar publishes, a catalogue raisonné is compiled, or a comparable work appears — typically many years after purchase. A four-year period running from delivery is a warranty that will almost never be available when it is needed, and the time to fix that is at purchase.

Three. Not perfecting the consignment. Every gallery insolvency produces owners who believed that owning a work was enough. A financing statement filed against the dealer takes an hour and it is the difference between recovering the work and proving a claim alongside the landlord.

Four. Reproducing what you own. 17 U.S.C. § 202 separates the object from the copyright, and collectors publish books, build websites, and produce merchandise using works they own and rights they do not. It is the most common infringement in this market and the easiest to avoid.

Five. Treating the provenance gap as a documentation problem. A hole in the chain across the wartime period, or an antiquity with no export record, is not an incomplete file. It is the specific fact pattern that generates claims decades later, and it is the first question rather than the last.

Key Authorities at a Glance

| Authority | Proposition | |---|---| | 17 U.S.C. § 101 | Definitions; work of visual art | | 17 U.S.C. § 106 | Exclusive rights | | 17 U.S.C. § 106A | Attribution and integrity | | 17 U.S.C. § 107 | Fair use | | 17 U.S.C. § 109 | First sale and display | | 17 U.S.C. § 113 | Works incorporated in buildings | | 17 U.S.C. § 202 | Object distinct from copyright | | 18 U.S.C. § 2314 | Transportation of stolen property | | 19 U.S.C. § 2601 | Cultural Property Implementation Act | | Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith | Purpose and character | | Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service | Originality | | Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel | Faithful reproduction | | Rogers v. Koons | Copying into another medium | | Cariou v. Prince | Transformativeness before Warhol | | Close v. Sotheby's | Resale royalty preemption | | United States v. Schultz | Patrimony law and stolen property | | United States v. McClain | National ownership declarations | | Demand and refusal rule | Accrual of replevin claims | | Holocaust-era art recovery | Extended claim periods | | Artist-dealer consignment statutes | Consignment trust protections | | Consignment perfection | Filing against a dealer | | Auction conditions of sale | Warranty structure | | Fine art multiples disclosure | Edition disclosure | | Immunity from seizure | Loan protection | | Art market money laundering | Compliance obligations | | Art title insurance | Insuring provenance risk |