Provenance is the record of custody: who held a thing, when, and how it moved.
A gap in that record is a fact about the record, not necessarily a fact about
the thing.
Reading a gap
A chain that runs 1890, 1912, then jumps to 1958 has a gap that covers the
years that matter most in European collections, and everyone in the field
knows it. The Washington Principles exist for
precisely that shape of gap.
What the gap can mean
- The dealer’s records burned, which happened constantly
- The owner was private and asked to stay private
- Nobody wrote it down, because until the 1990s nobody had to
- Something happened that someone did not want written down
Only the fourth is the one people mean. The other three are more common.
The research path
- Auction catalogues, which are often the only dated evidence
- Dealer stock books, where they survive
- Exhibition catalogues, which place an object in a room on a date
- Insurance schedules, the most reliable and the hardest to see
Links out of a post like this
Every outbound link in this post carries rel="nofollow", which is a small
statement: I am pointing at this, not vouching for it. In a field where
pointing at a dealer’s site is not an endorsement of the dealer, that
distinction earns its keep.
An internal link is different. The catalogue is not the collection
is mine, and pointing at it is vouching for it.
The honest conclusion
Most gaps are boring. The discipline is treating every one as a question until
it is answered, without pretending a question is an accusation.