This article is from the August-September 2024 issue of The Critic. To receive the full magazine, subscribe. Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

WWhat is it about owning something that once belonged to a celebrity that kills the thrill? The extraordinary price of $29,900 paid at Sotheby’s in 1998 for a slice of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s wedding cake is the most revealing and ridiculous example of what some call provenance counterfeiting.

Provenance is undoubtedly important, sometimes even the critical element in the acquisition of a work of art: knowing where something has been throughout its life is crucial to verifying an object’s history, to establishing a fixed date at which an object existed, a terminus ante quem. Gaps in an object’s history raise questions — indeed, sometimes deeply uncomfortable questions between 1933 and 1945.

As over the entire life of an object (sometimes called the “biography of an object” — see Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with the Amber Eyes) If it belonged to a famous person, this can give an object a powerful shine.

But how and why do certain objects seduce you with their associative brilliance, and how do these objects possess it? I have developed an unscientific and incomplete theory about the power of provenance on the art market.

There are four aspects. First, an object owned by a famous person is more desirable than an identical object with a “normal” ownership history. Second, the object must be a recognizable or somehow universal object – a piece of wedding cake, a spoon, or a piano, and if it is in good, recognizable condition, so much the better. Anything too unusual or downright strange certainly adds a degree of appeal, but for a narrow market.

If an object has been particularly close to its owner(s), such as a piece of clothing or jewelry, the shine is further enhanced.

Finally, there is the quality of the object itself. Condition issues aside, if the piece is of high artistic quality — and it is in fashion — this will add to the luster of a piece, but quality gets the lowest weighting in my equation.

How this plays out in the marketplace can be demonstrated by two recent, highly successful sales. The huge Sotheby’s auction in London in September 2023 of Freddie Mercury’s personal collection was a prime example of how ownership history determines market success.

Here was a famous person, with universal objects (sunglasses, watches, furniture, etc.), some of which had a close connection to him (his piano, the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in his own handwriting, worn Adidas high-top sneakers), and quality work (his collection of Japanese lacquer boxes was good, if not great: a very good incense box sold for ten times its high estimate). The Freddie Mercury sale was a resounding success, satisfying buyers’ desire to possess some kind of Freddie magic.

This was followed closely by the sale at Christie’s New York in October 2023 of a collection by the French Rothschilds. This was a magnificent group of objects, fully representative of that characteristic, rather serious style called le goût Rothschild, a kind of Mitteleuropa focus on 18th-century French furniture, 17th-century German gilt silver, spectacular Renaissance majolica and other Renaissance and Baroque art objects, often made of hard stones and other luxurious materials.

It was the epitome of what is no longer fashionable on the art market. Still, high prices were paid: in the case of a pair of French armchairs, ten times the low estimate, sold for $6.2 million (possibly helped by the provenance of Madame du Barry). But then another pair of armchairs, just two lots earlier, fetched just under ten times the low estimate, selling for $4.4 million. Here the only known provenance was the family. How do you explain the success?

Owned by a famous family, rare objects, probably invested by a Rothschild — but in most cases the decisive factor was quality. A large proportion of the works offered for sale were of world-class, international museum-collection quality.

Perhaps the prices for the pieces in the auction room would have been high even without the famous Rothschild name, but these objects had been chosen by the Rothschilds. And this was a chance for a buyer to place himself in the line of succession of a great and famous owner.

A chance at art market immortality, perhaps? Not unimportantly, the collection had been in the family for over a century (although confiscated in Germany between 1940 and 1946, and then returned). The pieces were prized for their beauty and quality, as well as for their secure history dating back to the 19th century or even earlier. And, yes, for the unmistakable brilliance of their owners.