Unique source material on the German art trade digitally networked: provenances, actors and objects in auctioneer's copies of auction and stock catalogues 1860-1950

• Applicants: Dr. Jochen Apel; Professor Dr. Ulrich Pfisterer
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 535969764

The project continues the work begun in the previous project on the annotated hand copies of the Helbing auction house and takes up the desiderata documented there: on the one hand, the need formulated by the specialist community for searchability and identification of the groups of people involved in the context of historical auctions, in addition to the dealers themselves here above all the consignors and clients, and on the other hand, the facilitation of more in-depth research into auction and trading practices as well as networks and the conditions of the circulation of objects in the late 19th and early 20th century. The project has three specific goals: 1. to expand the source base by digitising, indexing and typifying further collections of hand and protocol catalogues of relevant auction houses and art dealers from the years 1860 to 1950 (approx. 1,380 catalogues). 2. to make them accessible in greater depth. 2. in-depth indexing of the hand copies of the catalogues of the Munich auction house Hugo Helbing (1887 to 1937) digitised within the framework of the DFG project "Unique source material on the German art trade: digitization and indexing of auctioneer's copies of the catalogues of the Munich auction house Hugo Helbing (1887 to 1937)" as well as the newly digitised hand and protocol catalogues. The names on the lists of consignors and auction buyers will be recorded and disambiguated. In addition, the objects offered" outside the catalogue" are to be recorded and thus made findable by machine. 3. creation of a comprehensive index of the recorded names on the basis of TEI-XML incl. enrichment with GND standard data. This project is also intended to support provenance research for the implementation of the "Washington Principles" and the "Joint Declaration". Integrated into the portal "arthistoricum.net - Fachinformationsdienst Kunst - Design - Fotografie" and there into the internationally established portal "German Sales", the project results allow us to expect a substantial improvement of the current information infrastructure in the corresponding research areas.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Maria Effinger