Promised Activities

Table of Contents

Introduction

Many acquisitions are first long term loans, with a promise that ownership of the object will also be transferred after some conditions have been met. These promises are also typically enforced via a legal contract.

There might also be other promised activities, with or without a contract, that are valuable to document if known. This could include the promise to produce an artwork in exchange for money, typically called a commission.

Model Subject to Change

There are ongoing efforts within CIDOC to standardize how to describe social bonds between parties, activity plans that describe the conditions under which some activity would or did take place, and the management of ownership and other rights over time. The model presented here concerning promise activities has reduced fidelity compared to these efforts, and when they have stabilized, the modeling may be revised to take them into account.

There is a necessary vocabulary term, given the lack of a more explicit class to model activity plans or social bonds, in order to distinguish a Promise from any other activity.

At Risk

Given the Society work above, and the limited utility of the patterns, there is a proposal to exclude promises from Linked Art 1.0 and instead have them (along with other complex provenance) as an extension. Thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Promised Gift

A promise of a gift (or sale, or exchange) is an Activity which is carried out by the promising party. It is a promise to some other actor to perform some further activity (the giving or sale of the object), however we lack the ontological machinery at the moment to make this explicit. Instead we can reference the promised party and the object being promised only via the more general properties of participant and used_specific_object respectively.

Further details and clarification about the promise, including any description of the contract, should be given in a descriptive note on the promise activity.

Example:

Thomas Jaffe has promised to give the 19th Century Indo-Pacific Coffin to Yale University Art Gallery.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/provenance/coffin_promise/1",
  "type": "Activity",
  "_label": "Promised Gift of Coffin",
  "classified_as": [
    {
      "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300055863",
      "type": "Type",
      "_label": "Provenance Activity"
    }
  ],
  "part": [
    {
      "type": "Activity",
      "_label": "Promise of Gift",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435599",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Promise"
        }
      ],
      "referred_to_by": [
        {
          "type": "LinguisticObject",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435416",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Description",
              "classified_as": [
                {
                  "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300418049",
                  "type": "Type",
                  "_label": "Brief Text"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "content": "Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971"
        }
      ],
      "carried_out_by": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/jaffe",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Thomas Jaffe"
        }
      ],
      "used_specific_object": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/coffin",
          "type": "HumanMadeObject",
          "_label": "Coffin"
        }
      ],
      "participant": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/group/yuag",
          "type": "Group",
          "_label": "Yale University Art Gallery"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(provenance/coffin_promise/1) class O1 event; O1-- type -->O1_0[Activity] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Promised Gift of Coffin''") class O1_4 literal; O2(aat:300055863) class O2 type; O2-- type -->O2_0[Type] class O2_0 classstyle; O2-- _label -->O2_3("''Provenance Activity''") class O2_3 literal; O1-- classified_as -->O2 O3( _ ) class O3 event; O3-- type -->O3_0[Activity] class O3_0 classstyle; O3-- _label -->O3_2("''Promise of Gift''") class O3_2 literal; O4(aat:300435599) class O4 type; O4-- type -->O4_0[Type] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_3("''Promise''") class O4_3 literal; O3-- classified_as -->O4 O5( _ ) class O5 infoobj; O5-- type -->O5_0[LinguisticObject] class O5_0 classstyle; O6(aat:300435416) class O6 type; O6-- type -->O6_0[Type] class O6_0 classstyle; O6-- _label -->O6_3("''Description''") class O6_3 literal; O7(aat:300418049) class O7 type; O7-- type -->O7_0[Type] class O7_0 classstyle; O7-- _label -->O7_3("''Brief Text''") class O7_3 literal; O6-- classified_as -->O7 O5-- classified_as -->O6 O5-- content -->O5_3("''Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971''") class O5_3 literal; O3-- referred_to_by -->O5 O8(person/jaffe) class O8 actor; O8-- type -->O8_0[Person] class O8_0 classstyle; O8-- _label -->O8_3("''Thomas Jaffe''") class O8_3 literal; O3-- carried_out_by -->O8 O9(object/coffin) class O9 object; O9-- type -->O9_0[HumanMadeObject] class O9_0 classstyle; O9-- _label -->O9_3("''Coffin''") class O9_3 literal; O3-- used_specific_object -->O9 O10(group/yuag) class O10 actor; O10-- type -->O10_0[Group] class O10_0 classstyle; O10-- _label -->O10_3("''Yale University Art Gallery''") class O10_3 literal; O3-- participant -->O10 O1-- part -->O3
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Commissions for Artwork

Another type of promise can occur even before the artwork is produced: a commission from a sponsor for the production of the work. This starts out with paired promises, where the artist promises to produce the work, and the commissioner promises to pay for it. There might be some amount of money paid to the artist in advance, or other transfers of custody or ownership of objects, such as lending something to the artist to produce a copy of. Given the potential for multiple exchanges of promises, money, and objects, the description of the commissioning activity fits cleanly into the broader Provenance Entry model.

The description of the production of the commissioned object is taken care of by the regular production pattern, as described in the object section. The subsequent transfer of title to the new owner, and the payment of any monies due to the artist is a second provenance entry following all of the regular patterns.

Example:

The "Nuveen Painting" by Jim Dine was commissioned by Richard Franke in 1985.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/provenance/nuveen_commission/1",
  "type": "Activity",
  "_label": "Commission of Painting",
  "classified_as": [
    {
      "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300055863",
      "type": "Type",
      "_label": "Provenance Activity"
    },
    {
      "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300393199",
      "type": "Type",
      "_label": "Commissioning"
    }
  ],
  "part": [
    {
      "type": "Activity",
      "_label": "Obligation to Pay Artist",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435599",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Promise"
        }
      ],
      "referred_to_by": [
        {
          "type": "LinguisticObject",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435416",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Description",
              "classified_as": [
                {
                  "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300418049",
                  "type": "Type",
                  "_label": "Brief Text"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "content": "Promise to pay for a painting to be created by the artist"
        }
      ],
      "carried_out_by": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/franke",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Richard Franke"
        }
      ],
      "participant": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/dine",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Jim Dine"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "Activity",
      "_label": "Obligation to Produce Painting",
      "classified_as": [
        {
          "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435599",
          "type": "Type",
          "_label": "Promise"
        }
      ],
      "referred_to_by": [
        {
          "type": "LinguisticObject",
          "classified_as": [
            {
              "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300435416",
              "type": "Type",
              "_label": "Description"
            }
          ],
          "content": "Promise to produce a painting for the commissioning party"
        }
      ],
      "carried_out_by": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/dine",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Jim Dine"
        }
      ],
      "participant": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/franke",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Richard Franke"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

graph TD classDef object stroke:black,fill:#E1BA9C,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef actor stroke:black,fill:#FFBDCA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef type stroke:red,fill:#FAB565,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef name stroke:orange,fill:#FEF3BA,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef dims stroke:black,fill:#c6c6c6,rx:20px,ry:20px; classDef infoobj stroke:#907010,fill:#fffa40,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef timespan stroke:blue,fill:#ddfffe,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef place stroke:#3a7a3a,fill:#aff090,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef event stroke:#1010FF,fill:#96e0f6,rx:20px,ry:20px classDef literal stroke:black,fill:#f0f0e0; classDef classstyle stroke:black,fill:white; O1(provenance/nuveen_commission/1) class O1 event; O1-- type -->O1_0[Activity] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Commission of Painting''") class O1_4 literal; O2(aat:300055863) class O2 type; O2-- type -->O2_0[Type] class O2_0 classstyle; O2-- _label -->O2_3("''Provenance Activity''") class O2_3 literal; O1-- classified_as -->O2 O3(aat:300393199) class O3 type; O3-- type -->O3_0[Type] class O3_0 classstyle; O3-- _label -->O3_3("''Commissioning''") class O3_3 literal; O1-- classified_as -->O3 O4( _ ) class O4 event; O4-- type -->O4_0[Activity] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_2("''Obligation to Pay Artist''") class O4_2 literal; O5(aat:300435599) class O5 type; O5-- type -->O5_0[Type] class O5_0 classstyle; O5-- _label -->O5_3("''Promise''") class O5_3 literal; O4-- classified_as -->O5 O6( _ ) class O6 infoobj; O6-- type -->O6_0[LinguisticObject] class O6_0 classstyle; O7(aat:300435416) class O7 type; O7-- type -->O7_0[Type] class O7_0 classstyle; O7-- _label -->O7_3("''Description''") class O7_3 literal; O8(aat:300418049) class O8 type; O8-- type -->O8_0[Type] class O8_0 classstyle; O8-- _label -->O8_3("''Brief Text''") class O8_3 literal; O7-- classified_as -->O8 O6-- classified_as -->O7 O6-- content -->O6_3("''Promise to pay for a painting to be created by the artist''") class O6_3 literal; O4-- referred_to_by -->O6 O9(person/franke) class O9 actor; O9-- type -->O9_0[Person] class O9_0 classstyle; O9-- _label -->O9_3("''Richard Franke''") class O9_3 literal; O4-- carried_out_by -->O9 O10(person/dine) class O10 actor; O10-- type -->O10_0[Person] class O10_0 classstyle; O10-- _label -->O10_3("''Jim Dine''") class O10_3 literal; O4-- participant -->O10 O1-- part -->O4 O11( _ ) class O11 event; O11-- type -->O11_0[Activity] class O11_0 classstyle; O11-- _label -->O11_2("''Obligation to Produce Painting''") class O11_2 literal; O11-- classified_as -->O5 O12( _ ) class O12 infoobj; O12-- type -->O12_0[LinguisticObject] class O12_0 classstyle; O12-- classified_as -->O7 O12-- content -->O12_3("''Promise to produce a painting for the commissioning party''") class O12_3 literal; O11-- referred_to_by -->O12 O11-- carried_out_by -->O10 O11-- participant -->O9 O1-- part -->O11
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The resulting production activity has a caused_by property that references the above Provenance Event, as described in the object documentation.