Auction Houses Editing and Proofreading Services

Two lots in the same sale carry the same artist's name. One is by him, one is by somebody in his workshop, and one word in each heading is the whole of the difference. A bidder who does not know that the ladder exists reads both as the same claim — and the terms at the back of the catalogue say that the heading is the warranty.

We edit what auction houses produce — catalogue entries and lot descriptions, condition reports and provenance statements, cataloguing terminology and house style guides, conditions of business and buyer's terms, consignor agreements and estimates, private treaty and post-sale documentation, valuation and probate reports, and specialist essays and sale introductions. Our editors work on descriptions that carry a warranty.

The catalogue entry's attribution and provenance is where an auction house's liability and reputation both sit, and its failure is a description that says more than the house is prepared to stand behind. The heading is a promise; everything else is opinion, and a catalogue has to keep the two apart. We work through these so the attribution uses the house's published terminology exactly and consistently — by, attributed to, studio of, circle of, follower of, manner of, after — since these are a ladder with defined meanings and using one loosely undermines all of them; so the terminology is explained where a general audience will read it, because a bidder who learns the ladder after buying is a bidder who complains; so provenance is given as a chain with dates and named holders where known, and gaps are shown as gaps rather than bridged with plausible phrasing, given that an unexplained period is a fact and "thence by descent" over an unknown century is not; so anything the house has not verified is marked as being according to the consignor or according to a label; so literature and exhibition references are cited so they can be checked; so the condition report is separated from the catalogue entry and written to describe rather than to sell; and so any restoration, and the extent of it, is stated in the report even where the entry is silent. Entries written this way are the ones a specialist trusts.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including catalogue drafts, provenance research, consignor information and estimates. We are editors rather than specialists, valuers or lawyers, and we offer no view on attribution, authenticity, provenance or value. What we can do is keep the entry inside what you can support.