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You can find art for sale almost anywhere, most of it

coupled with a variety of forms of certification,

documentation, authentication, provenance,

attribution, and all other claims that the piece is by

this artist, etc. But guess what? None of these

papers, claims, certificates of authenticity,

documents or even tall tales mean a thing if they’re

not stated, authored, or else traceable to or directly

associated with accepted, recognized, and qualified

authorities about the art in question, and also the

artist themselves.

So here are some of the essentials to know on

attributing and authenticating art, how it works and

who the people to be trusted are.

They’re All Connected-Not!

One of the most pervasive problems in selling art

deals with “attributed” art. It’s so common that every

kind of unqualified individual would attribute

artworks to different kinds of artists, sad to say

100% of these attributions are considered to be

worthless.

How come? Simply because in the art industry,

legitimate attributions are only made by known and

recognized authority figures that have legitimate

authority on the attributed artists’ names.

Defining “Attributed”

Officially and technically speaking, “attributed”

means a specific work of art, which is most likely an

original, is at the hand and is certified by a

qualified authority on the matter. Take note that your

keywords here are “qualified authority”. Thus, if the

attribution is done by an unqualified person, then it

would be meaningless.

Who Are The Qualified Authority?

A qualified authority is someone who really knows what

he/she is talking about and has the proof to anything

he/she says. Qualified authorities are those people

that have deliberately studied the artist under

consideration, have already published papers about the

artist, and have curated major gallery shows or

museums catering the works of the artist.

They can also be someone who have taught courses about

the artist; bought or sold at least dozens or even

hundreds of artworks by the artist; have written

magazine articles, books, or catalogue essays about

the artist, and the like.

The artist him/herself can also be a qualified

authority, along with his relatives, employees, direct

descendants, and heirs. Also, people who have formal,

legal, or estate-granted sanctions or entitlements in

able to pass judgment the artist’s works are

considered to be qualified authorities. Most

importantly, they should be recognized throughout the

whole art community to the people in charge when it

comes to the matter of dealing with works by that

artist.

Who Are Not Qualified?

The list of people whom are not qualified could take

forever to complete. However, here are some of the

general characteristics of those unqualified people

who most likely say that they are qualified.

First off, you should watch out for those who think

that the piece they are selling is by this certain

artist just because the work ‘looks like’ it is done

by that artist; also, those who think that the piece

is by that artist because they saw some illustrations

from art books that are similar to the piece at hand.

Additionally, sellers that answer you with “that is

what the previous owner told me” kind of questions are

not to be trusted. You really can’t rely on

tattle-tailing to very if the work is an original or

not. This is just the same if they say that the work

is by such artist because the previous owner is rich

and famous.

You should also watch out for art appraisers, since

they only appraise and not authenticate; unless they

have qualifications to do so. Take note that appraisal

and authentication are two different things.

So, if you’re planning on buying a so-called original,

then you must make sure that the person you’re talking

to is a qualified authority, or better yet, the artist

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