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How to read a provenance
Editorial

How to read a provenance

A work's history is told as much by the gaps between the lines as by the lines.

Nadide Editör · 15 July 2026

A provenance chain is the record of a work passing from hand to hand. A good chain is unbroken: each owner's acquisition and disposal is known. Gaps are not always bad — the 1940s and the 1970s are periods when private collections in Türkiye went undocumented. But a gap is a question mark and should be shown as one.