Provenance Research: Continuation of the Collaboration Between the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum für Asiatische Kunst and the Zentralarchiv

20.02.2025
Museum für Asiatische Kunst

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin’s Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum) and Zentralarchiv (Central Archive) are expanding their joint provenance research on Asian Art. A corresponding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in early January. The focus is now on establishing permanent structures for sharing their knowledge, prompted by networking in recent years among specialists worldwide working in the field of provenance research on Asian Art.

Since 2020, the partnership’s webinar series “Hidden Networks: The Trade of Asian Art” has generated interest among more than 2000 people on five continents. The symposium “Provenance of Asian Art: A Collaborative Workshop and Symposium” in 2023 brought together more than 150 participants from 40 institutions and 17 countries. Creating permanent exchange structures is the next step in further strengthening this global network. A new webinar series titled “Unpacking Provenance”, a symposium on “Sharing”, and the implementation of a study on creating a digital exchange platform are planned for this purpose. A group of four experts on a Chinese porcelain bowl in the collection of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin dedicated themselves to the first webinar of the six-part series on 22 January 2025.

During the planned three-day international symposium in autumn 2026, specialists, curators and archivists intend to come together in Berlin for an exchange about materials and research findings, and to strengthen their networks of cooperation. “Sharing” is the main focus. This same approach is also taken in the third aspect of collaboration, evaluating the possibilities for developing a multilingual digital platform for provenance research. Such an instrument would simplify access to scattered archival materials and raise the efficiency of provenance studies’ circulation. The results will be published in a white paper.