Provenance is the list of everyone who has owned a work. It proves the work is genuine, that it was acquired legally and, often, that it was loved.
We search old sale catalogues, letters, photographs and the labels on the back of the canvas. One chalk mark can lead to a country house sale in 1890.
The Woman in Green in our December sale was traced through a photograph of a Cheshire drawing room, taken in 1911.
