4. Auction Sales, Resources, and Indexes
In addition to the selected electronic resources, below, the Fine Arts Library maintains extensive print and microform tools for research in the current and historical fine arts auction record. Please consult the Reference Librarian for assistance. Original auction sales catalogs may be requested at the Circulation Desk in the Fine Arts Library. Microform collections of auction sales catalogs are available in the Microform Collections located in the stack level of the Fine Arts Library. In addition, a significant number of older auction catalogs are represented by records in HOLLIS. Please see the Reference Librarian if you would like assistance with auction catalogs.
ADEC: Art Price Annual International & Falk's Art Price Index
Provides access to 1,600,000 auction results (January 1987-March 1999) from 1,630 auction houses in 40 countries. Includes painting, drawing, miniatures, prints, posters, sculpture, and photography. This database is available on Research Workstation 1 in the Fine Arts Library Reading Room.
ArtNet
Artnet is a commercial database of auction results covering the work of approximately 176,000 artists in 2 million sales records. International auctions held from 1985 to the present are indexed. Results include detailed information about media, title, size, sale price, and auction venue. Many records include full color images.
This database requires password access; please see the Reference Librarian.
artprice.com
A current auction results index covering "306,000 artists from the 4th c. to present in the following fine art categories: drawing-watercolour, painting, tapestry, prints, posters, sculpture-installation, photography and Audiovisual & Multimedia." data is collected from 2,900 auction houses internationally and in the United States. Includes price calculations for works by individual artists over time, a monogram index, and notices of works in upcoming sales.
This database requires password access; please see the Reference Librarian.
Art Sales Catalogues Online
Art Sales Catalogues Online offers access to page images of complete historical art sales catalogues for the period 1600 to 1900. It is based Lugt's Répertoire des catalogues de ventes and can be searched by Lugt number, date, place, provenance, content, auction house and existing catalog copies. Images are added as they become available.
Getty Provenance Index
The Getty Provenance Index, a project of the Getty Research Library, accumulates and disseminates information related to the history of collecting and the provenance of individual works of art. Its content includes: the Inventories Project, a database of archival documents and inventory contents, which are gathered from unpublished seventeenth- and eighteenth-century inventories of collections in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain; the Sales Index Project, compiled from nineteenth-century Belgian, British, French and Netherlandish sale catalogs, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German and Scandinavian catalogs; the Public Collections and Provenance of Paintings database which contains cataloging information on individual paintings, executed by artists born before 1900, from a selection of American and British public collections.
Gordon's Print Prices
Full-text, searchable version of Gordon’s Print Price Annual (RFA123.34) covering the years, 1986-present. Includes images, bibliography of monographs and catalogs, glossary, and index to advertisers.
This database requires password access; please see the Reference Librarian.
Mayer 98: International Auction Records
Provides access to over 1,000,000 auction results (1987-1997) from 30,000 international auctions. Includes painting, drawing, prints, posters, and sculpture.
This database is available on Research Workstations 1 & 2 in the Fine Arts Library Reading Room.
SCIPIO
SCIPIO offers access to art and rare book sales catalogs for sales held from the late sixteenth century to the present. Searchable indexes include auction house name, and places, seller name, date of sale, and title of sale. This database provides access to the Fine Arts Library's extensive collection of printed and microform auction sale catalogs.
