Provenance is the discipline the auction houses claim to honour and that, in their commercial conduct, they are permitted to honour only within the limits the calendar imposes. The catalogue must close by a date. The lot must be photographed, the condition report drafted, the consignor's expectations managed. The provenance, by the time these other things have been done, has been afforded such time as remains. It is not always sufficient.
The Maison's provenance work, conducted on behalf of members, proceeds at the pace the documents are willing to be found. It frequently takes months. It occasionally takes years. Our members are, by now, accustomed to this, and would in many cases regard a swifter answer with suspicion.
What the work consists of, plainly described, is the patient assembly of a complete history of an object — from its making to the present day — in such detail that no reasonable person, on examining the file we prepare, would harbour doubts about any chapter of it. The work moves from the maker's archives to the original retailer, and from there, by such means as are available, through the chain of subsequent owners. Each step is a separate piece of work, conducted in a different language and against a different archive, and the success of each depends on relationships maintained over decades by colleagues whose names will not appear in any catalogue.
The work is unsuited to the deadlines of the auction season, and it is unsuited to the temperament of the buyer who has become accustomed to acting at speed. The members for whom it is undertaken are an unusual category of buyer. They are willing to wait. The waiting is itself part of what they regard themselves as paying for.
Provenance, fully assembled, occasionally reveals chapters of an object's history the buyer would prefer not to be associated with. We do not soften the file. We have, more than once, advised against an acquisition on grounds the auction catalogue did not raise. The opposite circumstance also arises: an object whose history seemed incomplete proves, after the patient work, to be exemplary.
Provenance is not a service. It is a discipline. It is unfashionable in the present commercial climate because it is incompatible with the speed at which most modern commerce prefers to operate. It is also the only sound basis on which serious objects may responsibly enter serious collections, and the Maison is unwilling to relax it for the convenience of any party.
— Spring 2026