Art Sanctions

Program overview

The Art Sanctions program advances transparency in the cultural property market through open data and collaborative verification.

What we track

Cultural property

Artworks, antiquities, manuscripts, and other heritage assets with structured metadata.

Ownership and provenance

Time-bound ownership edges describing sellers, buyers, intermediaries, and legal dispositions.

Sanctions context

Program references, designation reasons, and citations for the individuals and entities involved.

Network intelligence

Relationships between beneficial owners, shell companies, freeports, and fiduciaries across jurisdictions.

Verification posture

Confidence scoring, source notes, and reviewer annotations for each record.

Program pillars

Transparency

Keep the database public, with detailed sourcing, so the community can audit and build upon our work.

Collaboration

Partner with investigative reporters, cultural stewards, and compliance professionals to surface new evidence.

Independence

Maintain editorial and financial independence from market participants who could influence coverage.

Responsibility

Respect privacy and legal sensitivities while acting in the public interest to protect cultural heritage.

Impact areas

Investigative journalism

Provenance chains help expose sanctioned oligarchs' assets and document restitution gaps for cultural heritage stories.

Compliance operations

Financial institutions and auction houses screen counterparties before onboarding or executing high-value transactions.

Museums & galleries

Registrars evaluate acquisitions and loans to avoid exhibiting or insuring works subject to seizure or disputes.

Policy research

Think tanks use the data to quantify sanctions evasion activity and recommend governance reforms for the art market.

We're actively onboarding partners for provenance research, cultural restitution, and compliance automation. Share your objectives so we can collaborate responsibly. Contact us at contact@sanctions.art.