https://www.modernmigrants.art/the-provenance-lab daily 0.75 2022-05-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ce435d6bea1ed00016ba287/1558964652247-5MWXNMFZVOPGE4TY6U2Q/MHeiderich_ReflexionenZwei-05-copy.jpg Provenance Lab https://www.modernmigrants.art/about-the-project daily 1.0 2024-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/c435afbf-af33-4f24-8a98-8e77ab9e1862/36museumsMap.png Research Project - The Research Project The research project “Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums” examines thousands of provenance records of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings created in Europe between 1860 and 1945. By exploring object-based provenance information on a large scale, the project addresses when, why and how paintings from Europe entered US museum collections, paying special attention to the role that political upheaval, dynamics of transatlantic art markets, and individual and institutional collecting strategies played in this circulation of objects. As such, it is the first university research program producing provenance linked open data. Considering provenance beyond the individual biographies of objects, and instead reading it more broadly as a collection of empirical evidence of cultural phenomena, enables questions to be posed about temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends and network dimensions. Taking a trans-disciplinary perspective, the project provides a new way of understanding art circulation through an analytic and qualitative approach to provenance. As we build our data corpora, we are looking to connect with and, ultimately, collect more data from museums in the US. For further information, please refer to our Museum FAQ. https://www.modernmigrants.art/team daily 0.75 2026-03-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1653221826053-8QO76F11W9Z7YN029BUO/rother_lynn_795-61332.3270x1535px.jpg Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1653222377640-DUFUFXCNE6M5TWA37MB4/koss_max_795-62828.3270x1535px.jpg Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/2c567d8b-ced0-461e-b78a-949eab3e1799/Coco.jpg Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/f861579e-e8ef-4a16-8b0a-a33d0247a393/csm_romero_barbara_795-80610.690x690px.WEB_5be10f65af.jpg Team https://www.modernmigrants.art/max-koss daily 0.75 2022-05-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/a29880a8-7efb-48d4-bb71-87d30286ab03/koss_max_795-62828.3270x1535px.jpg Max Koss Max Koss is a Research Associate at Leuphana University, joining in March 2021. Max received their PhD from the University of Chicago in 2019 with a dissertation on the German art nouveau periodical Pan (“The Art of the Periodical: Pan, Print Culture and the Birth of Modern Design in Germany, 1890-1900”). Prior to joining Leuphana University, Max was a doctoral fellow of the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut and the Berlin State Museums/Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Max has also held research fellowships and internships in various museums, including the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, and the Art Library of the Berlin State Museums. Max's research was supported with grants from the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Schiller Association, the Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Max holds an MA degree from the University of Chicago, another MA degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BSc in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). You can find more information about Max's activities and publications on their Leuphana homepage. https://www.modernmigrants.art/coco-rufer daily 0.75 2026-03-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/9b28fbbb-93ec-4440-8060-36640a7f2a05/Coco.jpg Coco Amy Rufer Coco Amy Rufer is a Research Assistant at the Provenance Lab at Leuphana University Lüneburg, joining in July 2025. She studied Cultural Studies, Aesthetic Practice, and Organizational Sociology in Hildesheim and Lüneburg. Her experience includes work in art education and curatorial practice. In her master’s thesis, she explored how art markets shape restitution debates. Her current research focuses on the intersection of exhibition studies and provenance research. https://www.modernmigrants.art/lynn-rother daily 0.75 2022-05-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/fe896efa-73ee-422a-8633-dd69a14e1b59/rother_lynn_795-61332.3270x1535px.jpg Lynn Rother Lynn Rother is the Lichtenberg-Professor for Provenance Studies and the founding director of the Provenance Lab at Leuphana University. Prior to this appointment, she held research positions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (2015–19) and the Berlin State Museums (2008–14) working on 20th-century provenance and digital initiatives. A former Fellow of The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (2014–15) and of the German Historical Institute in Moscow (2011), she has a Master’s degree in art history, economics, and law from the University of Leipzig (2008) and a Ph.D. in art history from the Technical University of Berlin, advised by Bénédicte Savoy (2015). Lynn Rother currently serves on the Getty Provenance Index Advisory Committee, the Editorial Board of linked.art, the Advisory Board of the JDCRP (Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project), the Expert Witness Selection Committee of CAfA (Court of Arbitration for Art), and the Board of the ZADIK (Zentralarchiv für deutsche und internationale Kunstmarktforschung). You can find more information about Lynn's activities and publications on her Leuphana homepage. https://www.modernmigrants.art/barbara-romero daily 0.75 2026-03-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1e773553-4464-44ed-8948-1518a36645ee/csm_romero_barbara_795-80610.690x690px.WEB_5be10f65af.jpg Bárbara Romero Bárbara Romero Ferrón is a Research Associate at the Provenance Lab, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, where she works on the "Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums" project. Her research brings together provenance and exhibition studies, complex systems theory, and network analysis through an intersectional lens. She is particularly interested in understanding how cultural phenomena evolve, how systems function over time, and how social, political, and economic relations shape culture. She is currently involved in research projects and exhibition initiatives with the University of Málaga, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the Complutense University of Madrid, and the Getty Research Institute. Bárbara holds a BA (2015) and MA (2017) in Art History from the University of Málaga (Spain) and a PhD (2024) from the CulturePlex Lab at Western University (Canada), where her doctoral research examined exhibition narratives and the dynamics of Spanish art in nineteenth-century exhibitions as complex relational systems applying network analysis and complex system theory. From 2019 to 2024, she worked as a lecturer in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Western University. Bárbara was also part of the 2022–2023 cohort of graduate fellows at the Getty Research Institute and completed a research visit at the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands in 2022. https://www.modernmigrants.art/about-the-images daily 0.75 2022-05-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000701028-ZOSB7UONDNIP8MI14Z13/ClaudeMonet_TheStudioBoat_TheBarnesFoundation.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000724481-P43MEMF2S3D34CB733KM/ClaudeMonet_ArrivaloftheNormandyTrain_ArtInstituteofChicago.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000741908-W59JBGJ54BLE6KGAI84R/JeanCharlesCazin_TheBoatyard_ClevelandMuseumofArt.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000765033-6BWQ3GIMJY9NX5PI18VL/E%CC%81douardManet_TheFolkestoneBoatBoulogne_PhiladelphiaMuseumofArt.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000787558-5ZZBFD3RKU30GPJXQUAZ/EdgarDegas_PaulLafondandAlphonseCherfilsExaminingaPainting_ClevelandMuseumofArt.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000804567-DM29GNABETK6HHMHE1FV/CamillePissarro_ThePlaceduHavreParis_ArtInstituteofChicago.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000840632-LLLV0CSBP9BAS9LMIJCV/ClaudeMonet_WaterlooBridgeSunlightEffect_ArtInstituteofChicago.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654000856552-9382G3JJAPRQ49RKD8J0/VincentvanGogh_TheFactory_TheBarnesFoundation.jpg About the Paintings https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/1654001738666-WZ2ND10CZR8QNN5NDLUX/PaulSignac_Opus217_MoMA.png About the Paintings https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq daily 0.75 2022-05-31 https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq/what-we-offer monthly 0.5 2026-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/c1c49d52-b40f-4494-bb0a-a528d163e4d3/ClaudeMonet_TheStudioBoat_TheBarnesFoundation.jpg Museum FAQ - What We Offer - What We Offer What data can we give you in return? In return for your collection information, we will give you structured, cleaned and enriched data. Indeed, while processing your information, we will use cutting-edge standards and best practice models of the cultural heritage domain. These include controlled vocabularies, such as the Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) and the Linked.Art data model, which were developed by museum professionals, based on ICOM’s CIDOC-CRM. Furthermore, if you tell us your specific needs, we would be happy to map the structured data according to your collection management system. How can our data help with your own provenance research and cataloging? Analyzing your collection information within our cross-institutional dataset will allow us to compare it with that of other museums, in regard to, for example, historical dealers and collectors, object paths, and research material. Such cross-referencing can enable synergy effects not only in provenance research, which is often time-consuming, but also in detailed cataloging. As we process the data, we are more than happy to share with you any relevant research discoveries, from common practices to inconsistencies across museums. How can our research help your curatorial mission? Have you ever wondered which US museums have developed similar or, indeed, dissimilar collecting patterns and strategies over time? If yes, then we might be able to help you! Focusing on Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings, we hope to locate your collection in the US museum landscape and thereby give you a sense of where it stands in relation to other institutions. We would be happy to share our findings with you along the way and may even surprise you—with new stories for specific works or unknown connections within your collection—helping you to develop new narratives for your curatorial practice, not to mention education and outreach. How can our tools, models and methods help you in the future? Have you ever wanted to search your collection for objects that might have been in Paris in c. 1913? Well, as it stands, most museum collection management systems and data models do not facilitate the recording of provenance data with its vagueness (e.g. circa 1913, near Paris) or uncertainty (e.g. probably or possibly) in a fully machine-readable way. Vagueness and uncertainty are, however, not only common aspects of provenance research, but also crucial to its accurate documentation. By testing, refining, and, where appropriate, developing tools, models, and methods specifically needed for producing historically accurate and fully machine-readable provenance data, then, our project hopes to enable both cross-object and cross-museum queries. When should you expect to reap the above rewards? While getting all museums on board may take some time, we are more than happy to share with you any research findings that we think might be helpful for your collection stewardship in the meantime. And while processing, analyzing, visualizing and contextualizing the cross-institutional dataset will also take a great deal of time and effort—not to mention testing, refining and, where appropriate, developing the tools, models and methods needed for doing just that—we nevertheless hope to share our results by 2024 at the latest. https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq/project-four-xfn3r monthly 0.5 2026-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/b6e77550-87e3-409f-8025-12c9f08786f9/CamillePissarro_ThePlaceduHavreParis_ArtInstituteofChicago.jpg Museum FAQ - What Data Exactly - What Data Exactly What paintings are we looking for? We have drawn up a list of 509 artists from 47 countries who have produced work in Europe between 1860 and 1945. So far, we have found 287 artists represented in 36 museum collections across the US, but we are determined to find more! In order to locate these artists in your collection, we are asking you to kindly share any collection information with us that fits the bill: paintings from Europe created between 1860 and 1945. Since we are able to refine all data for our needs, filtering out any information that is surplus to requirement, no data is too much data. That is, please do not feel as though you can overshare! What do we mean by ‘painting’ exactly? We are aware that while some museums use the classification ‘painting’, others do not, and that the spectrum of what defines a painting can include anything from oil on canvas and mixed media to 'Oil and metal fasteners on sandpaper, mounted on canvas, with feathers’. Indeed, for our algorithmically generated website ‘What is a painting?’, we have already gathered 587 different media types from 36 museums. If we can thus make one wish, it is that you overshare your information should you not use the classification ‘painting’. This is because we can easily filter your information for ‘paintings’ that are consistent with our dataset. What types of information are we looking for? Essentially, we are looking for the types of information that are typically recorded in catalogue raisonnés: object information and, if possible, also provenance information, exhibition history, and published references. This can include, but is not limited to, the following, where essential information is highlighted in bold: Artist name Title of the object Date of creation (or unknown) Place / Location of creation Dimensions Medium / materials Credit Line Accession / object number Inscriptions, signatures, etc. URL of the object on your museum website Classification Museum department Provenance text and notes Exhibition history before entering the museum collection Bibliography, published references, catalogue raisonné For your convenience, we have prepared a table with the types of information we are looking for: Museum Data Table. Please feel free to use this table as a reference and/or to copy and paste your collection information into it, before kindly sending it back to us per email: provenance@leuphana.de. Can you share ‘too much’ or ‘wrong’ information? Certainly not. Rather, if in doubt, please overshare! Indeed, we understand that it is not always easy to pull, never mind filter, specific information from collection management systems, online platforms and publications. Luckily, we can extract information from any source and filter it for specific data, be it digital or analogue. Can you share your information in any format? Yes! While we would prefer to receive semi-structured or structured data, we would be very grateful for your collection information in any format, indeed, even analog. For example: collection data presented in a table in Excel, CSV, or Google spreadsheet (structured or semi-structured) collection data in a text document such as Word or PDF (unstructured) collection information in a publication, be it a hard copy, scan, or bibliographic reference to a catalogue For your convenience, we have prepared a table with the types of information we are looking for: Museum Data Table. Please feel free to use this table as a reference and/or to copy and paste your collection information into it, before kindly sending it back to us per email: provenance@leuphana.de. https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq/project-three-jkwe7 monthly 0.5 2026-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/c1d7c891-2eb9-4505-8be2-0576e9f388e7/PaulSignac_Opus217_MoMA.png Museum FAQ - Why Your Data - Why Your Data Why are we researching paintings from Europe which are now in US museums? The focus of our project is on ‘paintings’, since traditionally they have better provenance documentation than works on paper or sculptures. We also understand that US museums are at the forefront of publishing collection information online, and that such information has the ability to unlock the untapped scientific potential of provenance research for art historical scholarship. We furthermore acknowledge that Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modern paintings are some of the most thoroughly-studied objects in art history and can therefore offer detailed provenance documentation—documentation that is just waiting to be analyzed on a large scale. Why do we want to work with a diverse range of museums? In order to map the multi-faceted history of American collecting of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings over more than 150 years, we aim to trace both the typical routes and the unusual paths that objects took across the Atlantic and, indeed, the US. Through the AAM and the AAMD, we have identified 149 museums in 116 cities in America that are relevant to our project’s scope. Thus far, we have gathered provenance information on 6,295 artworks from 36 museums (see our ‘List of Museums’). Our research is currently biased towards large, East Coast museums, however, with one too many blind spots! But you can help change that. As far as we’re concerned, every museum, every object, and every acquisition counts. Why do we need your help? To be as representative as possible, we aim to analyze the circulation of paintings by 509 artists from 47 countries who are known to have produced work in Europe between 1860 and 1945 (see our ‘List of Artists’). For over 60 percent of these artists, however, there is no catalogue raisonné. So far, we have found 287 artists represented in 36 museum collections across the US — with the caveat that many museums, both large and small, are still missing from our dataset (see our ‘List of Museums’). In order to reach our goal of including as many Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings as possible, we are thus calling on your help. What are our intentions? As an independent and experimental research project, we have no agenda but to generate new and useful knowledge. Indeed, we are a non-profit research lab at a state-funded German university. And while we are offering a service, we are hoping to engage in an exchange of information, above all. What do we mean to do with your data? Once we have received your public collection information, we will structure, clean, and enrich it alongside data from other museums. Then, as soon as we have fully processed the cross-institutional dataset, we will analyze, visualize and contextualize the information for the advancement of art historical scholarship. In the long run, we would like to publish the dataset under a Creative Commons license with programmers in mind, so that other digital humanities researchers might query it for their purposes. At every stage, we will of course be sure to record and credit your museum’s participation. https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq/project-two-hswgp monthly 0.5 2026-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/962e6983-59a4-45a4-b64b-6d1dee8f8637/ClaudeMonet_WaterlooBridgeSunlightEffect_ArtInstituteofChicago.jpg Museum FAQ - What We Do - What We Do What is the scope of our project ‘Modern Migrants’? Our research project ‘Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums’ aims to analyze thousands of provenance records of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings created in Europe between 1860 and 1945. Thus far, we have collated provenance information on 6,295 artworks and counting. What is our research question? In a nutshell: when, why, and how did paintings from Europe enter US museum collections? By exploring thousands of provenance records, we aim to identify temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends and network dimensions. We will be paying special attention to the role that political upheavals, dynamics of transatlantic art markets, and both individual and institutional collecting strategies played in the circulation of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern paintings. How do we approach our research? While our goals are art historical in nature, we use computational methods to assist with the study of unprecedented quantities of data, or what is otherwise known as ‘Big Data’. We treat our data findings like primary source materials, which require interpretation and contextualization by scholars. Why are we working with ‘Big Data’? In order to identify temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends, as well as patterns and outliers, we need to work with ‘Big Data’. This is because, as Schich et al. (2017) observe in their publication Network Dimensions in the Getty Provenance Index, ‘Big Data’ allows for “a ‘distant reading’ of the (trans)national circulation of artworks, social networks of agents, and cultural consumption more generally”. What do we produce? We produce original, art historical scholarship by gaining new insights into the circulation of art and the histories of collecting and art market practices. In order to realize the still untapped scientific potential of provenance research, we build large datasets of structured provenance data, together with subsets of provenance linked open data. We do so for the benefit of current and future scholarship across both museums and academia. https://www.modernmigrants.art/museum-faq/project-one-8e2re monthly 0.5 2026-02-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62864ffff4686740cb6fefb9/ef5d1e71-0dc7-4a9b-b59b-1d7917aec9bf/EdgarDegas_PaulLafondandAlphonseCherfilsExaminingaPainting_ClevelandMuseumofArt.jpg Museum FAQ - Who We Are - Who Are We Who are we? Founded and directed by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother—who formerly held the position of Senior Provenance Specialist at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and now holds a prestigious Lichtenberg-Professorship—the Provenance Lab is home to a small but growing team of art historians and digital humanities specialists dedicated to questions of provenance: Dr. Max Koss, Fabio Mariani MA, Liza Weber MA. Where are we? You will find us at Leuphana University Lüneburg, one of Germany’s leading institutions for transdisciplinary cultural sciences. The architect Daniel Libeskind, who designed the university’s central building, once described Leuphana as “an incubator for new ideas, innovation, research and discovery.” Indeed, it is unique in the humanities insofar as its teaching and scholarship are experimental in nature. Who is funding us? The professorship, the lab, and our project, ‘Modern Migrants: Paintings from Europe in US Museums’, are jointly funded by Leuphana University and the Volkswagen Foundation’s Lichtenberg Program. The Volkswagen Foundation, or VolkswagenStiftung as it is known in Germany, is one of the country’s leading independent funding bodies for academia. What are Lichtenberg-Professorships? Named after the 18th-century Göttingen University scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg—who held the first professorship explicitly devoted to experimental physics in Germany—the Volkswagen Foundation’s Lichtenberg Program aims to establish innovative academic teaching and new lines of research by awarding tenured professorships and additional funding to outstanding young researchers from all disciplines at a university of their choice. What do we believe in? At the core of our lab lies a new way of thinking about provenance, which is informed by the possibilities of data science. Fundamentally, we understand provenance beyond individual object biographies. We believe that by reading it more broadly as a collection of empirical evidence of cultural phenomena, we can study temporal, spatial, social, and conceptual trends and network dimensions. In so doing, we hope to gain new insights into the circulation of art, thereby enriching art history.