Getty Transforms Art Provenance Data to Support 21st Century Research

First launched in the 1980s, the Getty Provenance Index (GPI) has evolved into an unparalleled resource for tracing the ownership history of artworks, serving as a cornerstone for research on provenance, collecting, and art markets. Now, after nearly a decade of redevelopment, Getty has reimagined this essential resource, making it more accessible and valuable than ever before, with its massive repository containing over 12 million records.

“Getty has been a global and visionary leader in provenance research and provenance research resources for the past 40 years,” says Mary Miller, director of the Getty Research Institute. “Provenance is a very complex field of study that helps us to understand the lives of objects and how objects have moved in this world. Through this work, knowledge is mobilized through the politics of repatriation and provenance comes before that.”

The GPI resources are drawn from rare primary source materials such as archival inventories, auction catalogs, and dealer stock books dating as far back as the 16th century, with strong coverage for European and American paintings. By documenting the transfer of ownership of artworks it plays an essential role in understanding the movement of objects across time and geography, offering critical insights into the history of collecting and the art trade.

Through the decades, Getty has invested in building wide-ranging provenance expertise across the institution. While most museums focus their provenance work on their own collections, the GPI extends far beyond Getty’s own holdings. Indeed, most museums in the United States can find illuminating documentation about objects in their collections by perusing the GPI. The Provenance Index is an extraordinary contribution to the field, representing tens of thousands of hours of rigorous research. Through it, Getty reinforces its commitment to fostering transparency, advancing scholarship, and enabling new discoveries in art history.

The strength of the GPI lies not only in its vast data but also in the rich archival materials from the Getty Research Institute’s Special Collections. These extensive archives—encompassing records related to art dealers, collectors, and the broader art trade—form the backbone of the database’s unmatched depth and reliability.

As issues surrounding cultural heritage, repatriation, and the politics of ownership take center stage in today’s global discourse, the GPI stands as a vital tool for scholars, museums, and institutions dedicated to understanding the provenance of artworks and cultural objects. This innovative redevelopment ensures that the Getty remains at the forefront of provenance research, supporting transparency and accountability in the art world. Getty’s longstanding commitment to advancing new ideas and programs is once again demonstrated through this transformation of the GPI, made publicly available as Linked Open Data. Additionally, this vast and meticulously curated data aligns with community standards that support data interoperability and leverages the Arches open-source platform.

“The remodeled Getty Provenance Index launches at a moment when the public wishes to understand the long history of artworks far beyond the time of their creation. The GPI presents a treasure trove of information that helps to fill the gaps in these historic itineraries. But, the truly innovative contribution of the GPI is the high quality and unprecedented scale of its data, which allows us to envision unexamined matrices of relationships and exchanges between buyers and sellers of art over time. I am confident that the GPI will inspire new research questions and methodologies that will extend far beyond the scope of its extensive content.” Nancy Um, Associate Director for Research and Knowledge Creation, Getty Research Institute.

Complementing the Provenance Index is the launch of Tracing Art, an interactive experience that offers a window into the vast and growing possibilities of provenance data. Understand the complex web of relationships between objects, people, events, places, and time. See painters that acquired works from fellow artists, observe patterns in donors across museum collections, and experience the provenance journey of many works, including, Still Life with a Chinese Porcelain Jar by Willem Kalf and its journey to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

Read more information about the Getty Provenance Index. Explore Tracing Art.