What is Provenance?

Picasso’s Buste de Femme á la Chemise, L&M Arts New York

This lesson will address one of the major problems faced by the art world since World War II: the issue of provenance. Provenance is the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art. The term comes from the French provenir, “to come from,” and is used to describe the origin of an object, along with the history of its ownership.

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This lesson plan is available as part of The Greatest Theft in History Educational Program. We’ll regularly be adding more teaching aids, interviews, photos, archival footage and other valuable information.

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