Art Loss Register
Private London database of stolen, missing and looted works, searched by auction houses and insurers before buying or insuring.
Founded in London in the early 1990s, the Art Loss Register keeps a private file of objects reported stolen or lost, fed by victims, insurers and police forces. A search matches the description or photograph of an object against the records; it yields a dated certificate, priced by the lot. The major auction houses query it before cataloging a lot, and a careful buyer asks for the certificate before paying. Interpol keeps its own public database of stolen works, used alongside the register, not instead of it. For the insurer the register comes in twice. At inception, it checks that the proposed work is not already reported stolen. At claim stage, the loss goes on the register, without which the object is unlikely ever to be identified and returned. A clear certificate is not title: it only says nothing has been reported.
Textbook case: a Geneva gallery buys a bronze for €38,000 from a private seller. Before reselling, it orders a search at €90; the record matches a bronze stolen in Cologne in 2009 and reported by its insurer. The sale is canceled, the object is returned and the gallery turns on its own seller.
stolen art database, Art Loss Register search, art theft register, stolen works of art registry
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