Covering key aspects of provenance research for the international art market, this accessible publication, co-published with the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), explores a range of themes including challenges and best practice to considerations specific to Nazi looted art and the trade in illicit antiquities. Provenance research is a crucial component of any art-market transaction. Without a provenance it is often difficult to establish a work's authenticity, its true value or who has legal title. Whether buying, selling or simply maintaining an artwork in either a private or a public collection, the days when a blind eye could be turned to the history (or the lack of a known history) of a work have long gone. Proper, thorough and effective provenance research is the minimum required and demanded in today's art world - a world that is increasingly recognising the need for greater and more effective self-regulation in the face of fakes, forgeries and challenges to ownership or authenticity that are now commonplace. Provenance Research Today is essential reading for a broad audience, from those studying to become part of the art world or professionals starting a career in provenance research, to collectors or would-be collectors, dealers, galleries, auction houses, police and art lawyers.

The roll-call of wars down the centuries is paralleled by an equally extensive narrative of the theft, destruction, plundering, displacement and concealing of some of the greatest works of art during those conflicts - a story that is expertly told in this original publication. From the many wars of Classical Antiquity, through the military turning points and detours of the Fourth Crusade, the Thirty Years' War, Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, the First and Second World Wars, and then onwards to the ongoing contemporary conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the history of art crime in times of war contains myriad fascinating and often little-known stories of the fate of humankind's greatest works of art. Plundering Beauty: A History of Art Crime during War charts the crucial milestones of art crimes spanning two thousand years. The works of art involved have fascinating stories to tell, as civilisation moves from a simple and brutal 'winner takes it all' attitude to the spoils of war, to contemporary understanding, and commitment to, the idea that our artistic heritage truly belongs to all humankind.