Unknown Transfers

Table of Contents

Introduction

Especially when working from incomplete documentary evidence, it is frequently difficult to determine exactly what sort of exchange took place in the past. The object might have been sold or otherwise changed ownership, or it might have been only on loan. While this could theoretically be handled by a transfer of an indeterminate property right, this would be very complex and give the impression of more information being available than is actually the case. Instead, we add a new class called Transfer which allows the indeterminate transfer of an object between two parties without claiming whether it is ownership, custody or something else entirely.

Transfer

The class for indeterminate transfers is Transfer, and has three properties beyond the core activity properties:

This mirrors the other classes such as Acquisition, TransferOfCustody, and Move.

Example:

A painting is transferred between two people, however it is not clear whether it was permanent or merely a loan.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/v1/linked-art.json",
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/provenance/transfer/1",
  "type": "Activity",
  "_label": "Transfer of Painting",
  "classified_as": [
    {
      "id": "http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300055863",
      "type": "Type",
      "_label": "Provenance Activity"
    }
  ],
  "part": [
    {
      "type": "Transfer",
      "transferred": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/example",
          "type": "HumanMadeObject",
          "_label": "Example Painting"
        }
      ],
      "transferred_from": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/person1",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Person 1"
        }
      ],
      "transferred_to": [
        {
          "id": "https://linked.art/example/person/person2",
          "type": "Person",
          "_label": "Person 2"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

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/transfer/1) class O1 event; O1-- type -->O1_0[Activity] class O1_0 classstyle; O1-- _label -->O1_4("''Transfer 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( _ ) O3-- type -->O3_0[Transfer] class O3_0 classstyle; O4(object/example) class O4 object; O4-- type -->O4_0[HumanMadeObject] class O4_0 classstyle; O4-- _label -->O4_3("''Example Painting''") class O4_3 literal; O3-- transferred -->O4 O5(person/person1) class O5 actor; O5-- type -->O5_0[Person] class O5_0 classstyle; O5-- _label -->O5_3("''Person 1''") class O5_3 literal; O3-- transferred_from -->O5 O6(person/person2) class O6 actor; O6-- type -->O6_0[Person] class O6_0 classstyle; O6-- _label -->O6_3("''Person 2''") class O6_3 literal; O3-- transferred_to -->O6 O1-- part -->O3
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