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Certificate of authenticity: template and guide
A certificate has no prescribed form, but it has an expected content. Here it is, with a template to download.
What a certificate must contain
No text imposes a layout. What is expected is that a third party can, ten years later, tie this piece of paper unambiguously to this work and to whoever signed it. Hence this list.
- The artist — Surname, first name, years of birth and death where applicable. A namesake is settled here, not ten years later.
- Title and date — The title as the artist gave it, the year of execution. “Untitled” is a title: write it.
- Medium and support — Oil on canvas, gelatin silver print, lost-wax bronze. The material is part of the work’s identity.
- Dimensions — Height × width × depth, unit stated, framed or unframed — say which.
- Edition number — For a multiple: 3/25, and the number of artist’s proofs. An edition whose run is not written down is not an edition.
- An image of the work — On the certificate itself. This is what stops a certificate from travelling to another work.
- Provenance — Where the work comes from, and whose hands it passed through if you know. What you do not know is not invented.
- Who issues it, and in what capacity — The artist, the estate, the gallery, the committee. With address and registration number.
- Date and signature — Handwritten or electronic, but dated. An undated certificate is worth nothing.
- A unique number — So your own books can say which certificate was issued for which work, to whom, and when.
The template, to download
This PDF is rendered by MARMALADE’s own engine — the one that produces our galleries’ certificates. The work it describes is fictional, and so is the gallery: it is a specimen, not a document to sign. It shows the layout, where the image goes, where the number goes and where the signature goes.