From December 18 to 21, 2025, the Provenance Lab, in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute’s Getty Provenance Index, hosted 20 provenance experts from 11 countries for the inaugural international Coding Provenance Workshop.
Tracing the journeys of artworks from their creation to the present remains a pressing yet complex task. The activities of dealers, collectors, and institutions open windows into entangled histories of ownership and custody. But what happens when, instead of tracing a single object, researchers map thousands? That question motivated the collaboration between the Provenance Lab, led by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother, and the Getty Provenance Index, directed by Dr. Sandra van Ginhoven to equip provenance researchers with computational tools that can transform large-scale textual records into structured, analyzable data.
Hosted at the Daniel Libeskind-designed Zentralgebäude of Leuphana University in Lüneburg, the Coding Provenance Workshop was designed specifically for the provenance community and was conducted by the Lab’s own Dr. Bárbara Romero Ferrón and Dr. Giulia Taurino from the Getty. Together, we explored how computational methods, digital ontologies, artificial intelligence applications, programming workflows, network analysis, and data visualizations can support provenance research at scale. The participants were encouraged to work directly with their own datasets, ensuring that the insights developed during the workshop were immediately applicable to ongoing projects. Among the institutions represented in Lüneburg were the British Museum, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, the Van Gogh Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.
The urgency of the topic was reflected in the overwhelming response we received: nearly 200 applications from 40 countries competed for just 20 places. This level of interest underscores the growing demand for interdisciplinary training that addresses the idiosyncrasies of provenance data, including gaps, uncertainties, and the complexity of real-world information. The Coding Provenance Workshop also sparked critical discussions about the need for an international working group to provide a sustained forum for exchange among provenance professionals navigating computational challenges.
The Coding Provenance Workshop was therefore not only a hands-on training program but also a demonstration of how computational methods can be meaningfully integrated into provenance research. In conversations, the participants described the experience as intense, collaborative, and uniquely productive. Plans are already underway for a second edition of the workshop at the Getty in Los Angeles at the end of 2026, further consolidating an emerging international network committed to advancing computational provenance research.
Photography: Tengizi Tabatadze for Leuphana University.