Object Curation

Table of Contents

Introduction

While owned, the object is typically looked after and activities take place that affect it or try to preserve it. Whether these activities can be formally considered 'curation' is a very subjective and potentially controversial opinion, and we make no distinction between individual owners, art dealers, museums and galleries, or any other party that takes actions while owning an object.

Taking Inventory

One such activity is taking inventory (aat:300077506) by the owner of their objects. This is routinely carried out by art dealers, collectors or museums, in order to ensure that they still have custody of all of the objects that they believe they do. This establishes the existence and presence of the object at a certain place and time, and is thus useful in tracking the object through history.

This is modeled as an Encounter. In this case, the actor knows where the object is and it is not a "discovery", and the Provenance Activity describes the activity of the owner recording that they have seen the object, and perhaps inspected or examined it. The object itself does not change, nor its ownership or custody, but this is more that the knowledge of the state of the object is verified or updated.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/provenance/15",
  "type": "Activity",
  "classified_as": [
    {
      "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300055863",
      "type": "Type",
      "_label": "Provenance Activity"
    }
  ],
  "part": [
    {
      "type": "Encounter",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300077506",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Inventorying"
        }
      ],
      "carried_out_by": [
        {
          "type": "Group",
          "_label": "Owning Museum",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300312281",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Museum"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "encountered": [
        {
          "type": "HumanMadeObject",
          "_label": "Painting",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300033618",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Painting",
              "classified_as": [
                {
                  "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435443",
                  "type": "Type",
                  "_label": "Type of Work"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(provenance15) class O1 event; O1-- type -->O1_0[Activity] class O1_0 classstyle; O2(aat:300055863) class O2 type; O2-- type -->O2_0[Type] class O2_0 classstyle; O2-- _label -->O2_3("''Provenance Activity''") class O2_3 literal; O1-- classified_as -->O2 O3( _ ) class O3 event; O3-- type -->O3_0[Encounter] class O3_0 classstyle; O4(aat:300077506) class O4 type; O4-- type -->O4_0[Type] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_3("''Inventorying''") class O4_3 literal; O3-- classified_as -->O4 O5( _ ) class O5 actor; O5-- type -->O5_0[Group] class O5_0 classstyle; O5-- _label -->O5_2("''Owning Museum''") class O5_2 literal; O6(aat:300312281) class O6 type; O6-- type -->O6_0[Type] class O6_0 classstyle; O6-- _label -->O6_3("''Museum''") class O6_3 literal; O5-- classified_as -->O6 O3-- carried_out_by -->O5 O7( _ ) class O7 object; O7-- type -->O7_0[HumanMadeObject] class O7_0 classstyle; O7-- _label -->O7_2("''Painting''") class O7_2 literal; O8(aat:300033618) class O8 type; O8-- type -->O8_0[Type] class O8_0 classstyle; O8-- _label -->O8_3("''Painting''") class O8_3 literal; O9(aat:300435443) class O9 type; O9-- type -->O9_0[Type] class O9_0 classstyle; O9-- _label -->O9_3("''Type of Work''") class O9_3 literal; O8-- classified_as -->O9 O7-- classified_as -->O8 O3-- encountered -->O7 O1-- part -->O3
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Object Ownership and Existence

There isn't a temporal entity in the model that represents the entire duration of ownership of an object by a Person or Group, nor a temporal entity that represents the entire existence of an object. This is useful for the simple cases, when an object is acquired and sold individually, however quickly becomes complicated when multiple objects are involved in a single transaction. Instead, the relative temporal ordering properties of starts_after_the_end_of and ends_before_the_start_of are recommended to chain Provenance Activities together, allowing a system to infer the periods between the events.