Trust is everything in the art market. Anyone who spends a lot of money on a work of art wants one hundred percent certainty about authenticity and provenance. Tefaf Chairman Nanne Dekking has created an instrument that creates new trust. At Tefaf in New York, he explains how this works.
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Horse harness with antique bells, silver, around 1790, Friesland. At the Tefaf stand of the A. Aardewerk Dutch Silver & Antique Jewels art dealer from The Hague. (Image: PD)
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The art trade evokes certain images: mansion-like galleries with gold knobs on the doors, dealers in full coat, the conspiratorial handshake when buying a work. There are coordinates with the patina of dignity, erudition, discretion and with the message: The art world is an elitist fortress, here reside the chosen people who have knowledge and seriousness. And for a long time it was accepted in silence when art dealers withheld information about their goods from their customers. For a long time, questions of origin and authenticity were at least up to a certain degree of secrecy, and the art world was not particularly keen to systematize information about works.
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