Resale Agreement
Some galleries sometimes commit the buyer, through a specific agreement, called resale, not to resell the purchased work for at least a certain number of years (from 3 to more).
Photographic archive
Set of photographs (negatives and positives), photographic equipment and other materials. It can also be understood as a physical space for storing materials. Place of collection, conservation, enhancement and use of photographic collections, nowadays recognized by legislation as a "cultural asset", on a specific theme or a specific artist.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is a collection of different technologies that interact to allow a machine to exhibit human capabilities such as reasoning, learning, planning and creativity. Today, more and more works of art are made in part or entirely by artificial intelligences.
Art consultant and art advisor
Gli Art consultant e gli art advisor sono figure che offrono un servizio di supporto a collezionisti e istituzioni per agire nel mercato dell’arte, potendo tra l’altro offrire una indipendenza – auspicabile – rispetto a gallerie e case d’asta.
Auction
Public sale to the highest bidder. There is therefore a need for it to be public - offline or online - and that it happens to the highest bidder, after a period in which the lots (works or goods that go up for auction) have been potentially made visible to everyone. In the art market it is also one of the few moments where the realization prices are explicit and public.
Certificate of free movement
It is required for the definitive export / shipment of privately owned cultural goods that have not been declared by MiBACT of particularly important or exceptional interest; this authorization can be denied, with justified judgment, by the Export Office. This applies to goods with a value of more than 13,500 euros. Within this threshold, see 'self-certification for free circulation'.
Authentic
Certificate that attributes a work to a particular author, sometimes also investigating the origin. However, the regulation of the authenticity of works of art is often entrusted to market practice, while its legal discipline is not defined in detail. For example, in the case of works by a living artist, the right to authenticate undoubtedly belongs to the artist, while on his death this prerogative arises in the hands of some family members or specially created institutions - archives and foundations - on the assumption that they may have known the artistic production and the life of the artist.
Self-certification for free circulation
Works within the value threshold of 13,500 euros and by no longer living authors created more than 70 years ago can leave the Italian territory without an authorization (certificate of free circulation), those within 70 years with a self-certification drawn up by the private individual who intends to export (in any case subjected to examination by MiBACT).
Brick-and-Click
A Brick-and-Click is a gallery with a physical location and an online presence. Thanks to the new digital tools, many galleries have managed to change the business model, using online and offering collectors the opportunity to discover and purchase works of art from the comfort of their home.
Cataloguing
The scientific act of cataloguing must be understood as an organized collection, registration, description and classification of the greatest number of information on each type of work and cultural asset.
It provides a detailed description of the object, the year of creation, the provenance (history of ownership changes), the main exhibitions in which this lot was included and the publications in which it was documented. In recent years, digital cataloguing, which can be consulted from different types of devices, has assumed increasing importance.
Catalog raisonné
A catalog raisonné is a complete, annotated list of all known works made by an artist, considering all media used. The works are described in such a way that they can be clearly identified. These publications can be made when the artist is still alive or not; when he is alive, this is an extra guarantee about the authenticity of the works included.
Purchase Commission
This is the amount that must be added to the hammer price struck at the auction (also called the hammer price). Also referred to as 'buyer's premium'.
Sales commission
It is the amount that must be paid as a commission by the seller of a lot to the auction house for the services offered.
It is deducted from the hammer price. In English seller's commission.
Terms of sale
Document describing the terms under which the Auction House and the client agree to sell a lot to the buyer. It is important that you read the conditions carefully before submitting your offers.
Cryptoart
A work of crypto art is a digital content, uploaded to an exchange platform, whose sale is recorded on a blockchain. The blockchain is a kind of decentralized ledger, which is a huge register of all transactions in which entries are entered through the resolution of cryptographic operations (hence the name "crypto"). In order to be sold, the cryptoart works are converted into NFT, non fungible token.
Storage
Often the works, especially of contemporary art due to their size, are placed in warehouses managed by specialized companies, spaces and vaults designed to remotely store and manage their assets, entrusted to the constant monitoring of professional staff. For smaller and more precious objects there are safety deposit boxes.
Customs warehouse
Area in which the suspension of customs duties and import VAT is in force, without time limits. It allows foreign goods owned in a non-EU country to pass through the vaults - specifically works of art, precious items and collector's cars with an open temporality until a temporary or definitive destination is identified.
Resale right
The resale right (droit de suite) is the author's right owed to the artist or heirs for all subsequent sales in which an art market professional participates as a seller, buyer or intermediary. Transactions by galleries, auction houses or art dealers will therefore be subject to it, while direct sales between individuals will be excluded. It is a percentage, identified by brackets, of the amount obtained for each sale (eg 4% up to 50,000 euros).
Edition
Exemplary of a work of art produced in limited quantities. The artist's edition is a series of identical works designed by the artist to be produced according to the techniques of letterpress or electronic printing. These are, therefore, original works of art, the result of the collaboration between publishers and artists. Limiting the number of copies produced from the same matrix leads to a 'limited edition' or 'limited run edition'. The pieces are identified by a progressive numbering.
Warranty
In rare cases, an auction house can guarantee the buyer the payment of the lot, regardless of whether the bids at auction reach the reserve price or not. The guarantee can be provided by the Auction House, by third parties or jointly by the House and by third parties.
Installation
Three-dimensional visual artwork, including different media, objects and expressive forms of any kind, often created for a specific place and designed to change the perception of space. The term "installation", which appeared in the 1970s, is generally applied to works created for interior spaces, such as galleries or museums. Outdoor works are more often called "public art" or "Land art".
Primary market
The term primary market indicates that segment of the art market where works of art are sold for the first time and therefore when their initial economic value is fixed. The intermediaries (galleries or merchants) who operate in this part of the market generally have a very close relationship with the artists, promoting their work.
Secondary market
The secondary art market differs from the primary one as it refers to all the successive steps of a work after its first purchase. The main operators of the secondary contemporary art market are: art galleries, art dealers and auction houses. It mainly concerns modern, ancient and antiques art. In contemporary art, however, the secondary market often intersects with the primary one.
NFT
NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) are digital certificates of authenticity, unique, non-modifiable codes written, forever, within a network accessible to anyone. They allow you to create a "limited edition" of a file that could otherwise be easily reproduced, and this process is also applicable to an "artistic" digital file, be it a jpg, a video, or other. So NFTs allow you to certify and guarantee to 100% that a digital artwork exists and has been uploaded to the network by its creator.
Notification
The term "notification" in the jargon used in the art world indicates that set of passages, dating back to the Bottai Law of 1939, which involves the MiBACT which recognizes the particularly important interest, from a cultural, artistic, historical, archaeological or ethno-anthropological point of view, of art assets. It follows the injunction not to be able to proceed with the expatriation of the property after the sale of the same outside the territorial borders of the State. The notification can be followed by the exercise of the pre-emption on the purchase by the State. In terms of the economic value of the object, the notification can be a problem for the owner.
Online Buyer
An Online Buyer is a collector or potential buyer who purchases art online, via a digital platform or directly from a gallery or auction house website. The emergence of a new generation of Millennial Collectors has led to a rapid rise in the online art market.
Hammer Price / Reserve Price
It is the winning bid for a lot presented at auction. It is the price at which the auctioneer's hammer is beaten, determining the selling price, but not including the purchase commission. It is also known as the Martello Price.
The reserve price is the confidential minimum price, agreed between the client and the Auction House. The reserve price must be at or below the minimum estimate and if the offers end before that price is reached, the property is not sold. Very often it is simply called "Riserva".
Origin
An important factor in the process of identifying a work, the provenance establishes the transfer of ownership backwards, up to the date, if possible, of the execution of the object. The provenance can greatly affect the value of a work.
Restoration
Art restoration is an activity linked to the maintenance, recovery, restoration and conservation of historical artifacts, such as a fresco, a sculpture, a manuscript, a painting, an architecture. Restoration is a particular technique that allows the restorer to reintegrate the missing parts so that it is almost impossible to distinguish the original part from the restored one.
Strategic planning
It is that strategic planning process with which the objectives of a system are set and the means, tools and actions to achieve them are indicated in a medium / long-term perspective. It is an organizational process necessary to define a strategy or direction to take to make decisions on the allocation of resources. It has an increasing impact also in the art world, in reference to cultural institutions and organizations. With reference to potential new projects, 'feasibility studies' are defined.
Taxation of works of art
The sale of works of art, precisely due to the peculiarity of the asset involved in the transaction, has specific tax aspects to consider, both when it is exercised professionally and when it is carried out on an occasional basis. The two situations have different treatments.
Assessment
The formal assessment of the current market value and / or insurance value of a given property. The current market value represents, if done by an auction house, the possible auction result of the estimated object. The insurance value corresponds to the possible amount foreseen for the replacement of an estimated object. The estimates first take account of similar and recently sold pieces; however, no estimate is to be considered definitive. There may also be valuations for financial statement, balance sheet and inheritance purposes.
