PROVENANCE

The Artist | Title | Date of Creation | Ownership History | Ownership Type (i.e. sale, gift, inheritance, exchange) | dealer/gallery/auction house involved in the transaction | location of the work at each stage | exhibition history | publication history | gaps in the record | museum loan & acquisition history | consignment history | loss | theft | damages

OVERVIEW

Provenance is an artwork's ownership history. It runs from the artist to the present owner, recording every hand the work has passed through along the way. A complete record includes names, dates, and how the work moved: sold, gifted, inherited. It shows where a piece has been and who has held it.

THE NEW STANDARD

In recent years, provenance has become a requirement rather than a formality. Museums and auction houses expect a documented ownership history before they acquire or sell a work. African art has largely sat outside that expectation, since no institution has taken on the work of consolidating provenance for the region.

The Sankofa Repository documents that history for every artwork it records, as part of building the first standing provenance infrastructure for West African art.

NIGERIAN LAW ENACTED BUT NOT ENFORCED

Legal and ethical frameworks for provenance already exist in Nigeria.The National Commission for Museums and Monuments Act of 1979 created a broad cultural infrastructure under national law, replacing earlier antiquities legislation. Under the Act, licensed agents can trade in antiquities, and the law calls for a registry of every object traded.

These frameworks work when someone maintains them. No evidence exists that the registry required by Nigerian law has ever been built. Institutions abroad have had little reason to look closer, since there was no domestic record to check a work against in the first place.

The result has been decades of unrecorded ownership. Works entered foreign collections through means that were never documented, catalogued, or questioned. Those same institutions built exhibitions, research programs, and reputations around the material, generating income and prestige that went toward strengthening their own collections and conservation work. Nigeria held none of that value.

HOW WE HELP ARTISTS, COLLECTORS AND INSTITUTIONS

Anyone sending a Nigerian artwork abroad needs an export permit from the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. That process asks for a clear account of the object: what it is, who made it, and how it came to be owned by the applicant. Most people preparing an application have none of that on hand. The Sankofa Repository closes that gap. A completed provenance record and Certificate of Authenticity gives an applicant the documentation an export permit requires, gathered and verified ahead of time. For collectors and institutions moving work internationally, that turns the bureaucratic process into a straightforward one.