Provenance Lab

The Provenance Lab at Leuphana University of Lüneburg is an interdisciplinary research hub for experimental knowledge production in the field of provenance studies. The Lab, which is part of the Institute of Philosophy and Art History, was founded and is headed by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother, who brings over a decade of experience in provenance research and museum practice to the project. At the lab, we see provenance information as both individual object biographies and empirical data that, through computational methods, allow us to explore cultural and social connections across eras and regions on a broader scale.

©Lynn Rother

Selected Publications

Rother, Lynn, Max Koss, and Fabio Mariani. “Provenance as Accountability: Transparent and Verifiable Cataloguing for the Digital Age.” In Elgar Research Handbook on Art, Culture, Heritage and Law, forthcoming.

Koss, Max, Bárbara Romero Ferrón, Lynn Rother. “What’s in a Name? Measuring the Potential of Provenance Data for Art Market Studies and the History of Collecting.” In Hand and Glove: Art Market Studies and the History of Collecting, edited by Blair Brooks and Natasha Degen. Brill, forthcoming.

Mariani, Fabio, Max Koss, and Lynn Rother. “People Information in Provenance Data: Biographical Entity Linking with Wikidata and ULAN.” Zivot Umjetnosti 114, no. 1 (2024): 148–61. https://doi.org/10.31664/zu.2024.114.07.

Rother, Lynn, Max Koss, and Fabio Mariani. “Interpreting Strings, Weaving Threads: Structuring Provenance Data with AI.” In Sammlungsforschung im Digitalen Zeitalter: Chancen, Herausforderungen und Grenzen, edited by Stefan Alschner and Katharina Günther. Kulturen des Sammelns: Akteure, Objekte, Medien 6. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2024: 93-103. https://doi.org/10.15499/kds-005-008.

Rother, Lynn, Max Koss, and Fabio Mariani. “The Future of Provenance: Digital Cataloguing as Reparative Practice.” In The Next Horizon of Museum Practice: Voluntary Repatriation, Restitution, and Reparations, edited by Elizabeth Merritt, Arlington, VA: American Alliance of Museums, 2024. https://www.aam-us.org/programs/about-aam/the-next-horizon/.

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Rother, Lynn, Fabio Mariani, and Max Koss. “Verknüpfte Daten: Die Zukunft der Provenienzforschung.” Museumskunde: Fachzeitschrift für die Museumswelt 89, no. 1/2 (December 5, 2024): 26–31.

Mariani, Fabio. “Introducing VISU: Vagueness, Incompleteness, Subjectivity, and Uncertainty in Art Provenance Data.” In Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Methods in the Humanities 2022: Lausanne, Switzerland, June 9–10, 2022., edited by Yannick Rochat, Coline Métrailler, and Michael Piotrowski, 3602: 63–84. Aachen: Sun Site Central Europe (RWTH Aachen University), 2023. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3602/.

Mariani, Fabio, Lynn Rother, and Max Koss. “Teaching Provenance to AI: An Annotation Scheme for Museum Data.” In AI in Museums: Reflections, Perspectives and Applications, edited by Sonja Thiel and Johannes Bernhardt, 163–72. Bielefeld: transcript, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839467107-014.

Rother, Lynn, Fabio Mariani, and Max Koss. “Hidden Value: Provenance as a Source for Economic and Social History.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte: Economic History Yearbook 64, no. 1 (May 1, 2023): 111–42. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2023-0005.

Rother, Lynn, Max Koss, and Fabio Mariani. “Taking Care of History: Toward a Politics of Provenance Linked Open Data in Museums.” In Perspectives on Data, edited by Emily Lew Fry and Erin Canning. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2022. https://www.artic.edu/digital-publications/37/perspectives-on-data/25/taking-care-of-history.

Selected Events

January 15, 2026
Katalogisieren als Machtpraxis – Kunstgeschichte zwischen epistemischer Gewalt und Gerechtigkeit [Cataloguing as a Practice of Power: Art History Between Epistemic Violence and Justice]
Conference talk by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother at Engagierte Kunstgeschichte. Verantwortung, Handlungsspielräume und Relevanz eines Fachs in Zeiten multipler Krisen [Engaged Art History: Responsibility, Agency, and the Relevance of a Discipline in Times of Multiple Crises], TU Berlin,
https://www.tu.berlin/en/kuk/events/conferences-workshops/workshop-engaged-art-history

January 8, 2026
Innovative Approaches to Catalogues Raisonnés to Elevate Underrepresented Artists and Art
Panel contribution by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother at ICRA’s 7th Annual Conference | Representing the Unrepresented, London, https://icra.art/events

December 18–21, 2025
Coding Provenance Workshop
(Final participants selected)
https://www.leuphana.de/en/institute/ipk/aktuell/aktuelles-und-veranstaltungen/single-view/2025/07/16/call-for-application-coding-provenance-workshop-on-computational-provenance-research.html

December 10, 2025
The Epistemologies of Provenance: Textual Practices, Humans, and Artificial Intelligence
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero Ferrón at Archival Intelligence: AI × Archives × Museums, Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM), Karlsruhe, https://zkm.de/de/2025/12/archival-intelligence

December 9, 2025
Unheimliche Provenienz: Die Kunstgeschichte und ihr Doppelgänger [Uncanny Provenance: Art History and its Double]
Guest Lecture by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother as part of Museum und Museumswissenschaft – Aktuelle Themen und Tendenzen [Museums and Museum Studies – Current Topics and Trends], Universität Würzburg

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December 3, 2025
Exposiciones y ecosistemas culturales [Exhibitions and Cultural Ecosystems]
Workshop contribution by Dr. Barbara Romero Ferron as part of Cultura de datos: navegando la complejidad de los sistemas culturales [Data Cultures: Navigating the Complexity of Cultural Systems], University of Málaga, Málaga

November 14, 2025
Preisargumente in Restitutionsstreitigkeiten [Price as Argument in Restitution Disputes]
Conference talk by Coco Amy Rufer, M.A. at Fachforum Kunsthandel der Moderne in Berlin [Expert Forum The Modern Art Trade in Berlin], Berlinische Galerie

November 4, 2025
Zur Zukunft der Provenienzforschung [On the Future of Provenance Research]
Keynote by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother at 10 Jahre Netzwerk Provenienzforschung in Niedersachsen [10 Years of the Provenance Research Network in Lower Saxony], Landesmuseum Hannover
https://www.provenienzforschung-niedersachsen.de/tagung-10-jahre-netzwerk-provenienzforschung-in-niedersachsen-am-4-5-november-2025/

October 23, 2025
Ni son todas las que están, ni están todas las que son: Estructuras, márgenes y mujeres artistas en el sistema expositivo andaluz [Structures, Margins, and Women Artists in the Andalusian Exhibition System]
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at Humanidades Digitales Hispánicas 2025 [Hispanic Digital Humanities 2025], University of Valencia, Valencia https://hdh2025.uv.es/

October 22, 2025
Cartografías entrelazadas: modelar la transnacionalidad en el ecosistema expositivo español (2000-2023) mediante análisis de redes [Connected Cartographies: Modelling Transnationality in the Spanish Exhibition Ecosystem (2000–2023) through Network Analysis]
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at Humanidades Digitales Hispánicas 2025 [Hispanic Digital Humanities 2025], University of Valencia, Valencia https://hdh2025.uv.es/

October 17, 2025
Goya, exposiciones y redes en el siglo XIX: conexiones visibles e invisibles del arte español [Goya, Exhibitions and Networks in the Nineteenth Century: Visible and Invisible Connections of Spanish Art]
Invited Lecture by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at III Edición de Voces Emergentes. Nuevas perspectivas en el arte y en la cultura, [Third Edition of Emerging Voices: New Perspectives in Art and Culture], Museo Goya. Fundación Ibercaja, Zaragoza
https://www.fundacionibercaja.es/actividades/conferencias-y-mesas-redondas/goya-exposiciones-y-redes-en-el-siglo-xix-conexiones-visibles-e-invisibles-del-arte-espanol/

October 16, 2025
Más allá del grafo: metodologías colaborativas para la construcción de conocimiento en la web semántica [Beyond the Graph: Collaborative Methodologies for Knowledge Construction on the Semantic Web]
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at Innovando a las bibliotecas universitarias: interoperabilidad y datos vinculados al servicio de las comunidades usuarias [Innovating University Libraries: Interoperability and Linked Data in Service of User Communities], The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, https://cibu.dgb.unam.mx/index.php/es

October 15, 2025
Representación, jerarquías y periferias [Representation, Hierarchies, and Peripheries]
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at Mestizajes, Donostia International Physics Center, San Sebastián
https://www.mestizajes.es/Proyectos/Conferencias/Conferencia%202025/Workshop/Workshop.html

October 6, 2025
Records as Resources: The Provenance Lab’s AI & Linked Data Strategy
Workshop talk by Dr. Fabio Mariani and Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at Cultural Heritage in the Age of AI: Exploring Knowledge Graphs – Current State and Future Perspectives, Leiden University, Leiden

September 18, 2025
“Bilder vom Menschen” – West-Berliner Bankankäufe von Kunst aus der DDR [“Images of the Human”: West Berlin Bank Purchases of Art from the GDR]
Workshop talk by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother at Die Ludwigs und der deutsch-deutsche Austausch von Gegenwartskunst 1974–1990 [The Ludwigs and the East–West German Exchange of Contemporary Art, 1974–1990], Zeithistorisches Forum Leipzig, https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-158812

July 17, 2025
Empowering Peripheral Voices: Data Sovereignty and Low-Tech Solutions for Art Galleries' Data Preservation
Conference talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at DH 2025, Accessibility & Citizenship, NOVA University Lisbon, Lisbon https://dh2025.adho.org

June 24, 2025
From Archives to Activism: Using Data to Challenge Structures in Art Collections
Workshop talk by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at the Curriculum Workshop for Higher Ed: Feminist Art, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06DouwHvIlQ

June 17, 2025
Between Connections and Knowledge: An Approach to Culture through Graph Theory and Complex Systems
Guest lecture by Dr. Bárbara Romero-Ferrón at the Spanish National Research Council, Madrid

February 7–8, 2025
LIAS Workshop: Beyond Restitution: Indigenous Practices, Museums and Heritage
Co-organized by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother as part of the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies (LIAS) in Culture and Society, Lüneburg, https://www.leuphana.de/en/research-centers/lias/news/events/single-view/2025/02/07/lias-workshop-beyond-restitution-indigenous-practices-museums-and-heritage.html

October 9, 2024
Toward Interconnected Object Histories: Challenges and Opportunities in the Creation of Provenance Linked Open Data
Conference talk by Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother, Dr. Max Koss and Fabio Mariani at 2024 LD4 Conference: Building Community for Linked Open Data, New York

February 16, 2024
Blanks No More - Digital Art History and the Unknown
Conference panel organized by Dr. Max Koss and Prof. Dr. Lynn Rother, hosted by the Digital Art History Society at the College Art Association 112th Annual Conference, Chicago