Verified as of 27 September 2026. If anything has changed, let me know and I will update it with the date of the change.
One question keeps coming up in the art market: ‘Is it in the catalogue raisonné?’ Inclusion can make a work easier to identify and to circulate. Absence may call for explanations, although it does not in itself prove that the work is a forgery. This guide explains what a catalogue raisonné is, who prepares it, why it carries so much weight and how a living artist can start their own. It is not legal advice.
What it is
A catalogue raisonné is a critical, documented compilation that aims to record all the known works of an artist, or a defined part of them, such as their paintings or their prints. It is not a mere inventory. Each entry rests on the available research, and decisions on attribution, dating or exclusion must be justifiable.
An entry typically includes:
- catalogue number;
- title and previous titles;
- date or date range;
- medium, support and dimensions;
- signature, inscriptions, marks and labels;
- images of the work and, where they add information, of the back and of details;
- known provenance;
- exhibitions and bibliography;
- location or last known whereabouts;
- condition, interventions and technical analyses, where relevant;
- doubts about attribution or dating, and the reasoning behind the decision taken.
A catalogue may include lost, destroyed, doubtful or rejected works, as long as the categories are clearly defined. It may be published in print or as a digital resource that can be updated.
Who compiles it
It is usually compiled by a specialist or a research team, sometimes linked to the artist’s foundation, their heirs, a museum, an archive or an academic publisher. The artist can also start it. What matters is not the institutional link but the quality of the method, independence of judgement, traceable sources and the ability to correct errors.
It is good practice to publish an editorial policy explaining the scope of the catalogue, the criteria for inclusion, the attribution categories, the procedure for submitting works, how conflicts of interest are handled and how a decision can be corrected or appealed. A catalogue raisonné is not infallible, nor is it a court ruling.
Cataloguing and authenticating are not the same
A catalogue raisonné is a work of research on a body of work. A certificate or expert opinion on authenticity answers a query about one specific piece. The two functions can be related and, in practice, inclusion in a catalogue often carries weight in an attribution, but they are not the same thing.
The case of the Andy Warhol Foundation illustrates the difference. Its authentication board faced legal claims over certain negative decisions. The foundation spent more than seven million dollars defending the Joe Simon-Whelan litigation. In October 2011, it announced that the board would cease accepting works and would dissolve at the beginning of 2012. The catalogue raisonné project, initiated in 1977 and sponsored by the foundation since 1993, continued. As of 2026, it comprises six published volumes on paintings and sculptures from 1961 to 1980, in addition to other projects dedicated to prints and films.
That the catalogue carried on does not remove its influence on the market. It only shows that researching a body of work and issuing opinions on individual pieces are different activities, with different procedures and risks.
Why it carries so much weight
What follows is an interpretation. A catalogue raisonné starts out as an instrument of knowledge, but it can work as a threshold of recognition. Inclusion makes it easier for a work to be identified, studied, lent, insured or sold. Exclusion or absence can make those things harder, even though there are many legitimate reasons why a piece may not appear: it was unknown, the documentation was insufficient, it surfaced after the editorial cut-off, or specialists disagree.
Whoever defines the body of work therefore wields a power that goes beyond academic classification. For a living artist, the consequence is practical: the better you document your work now, the less you will depend on incomplete reconstructions later.
How to start your own
- Define the scope. Decide whether you will record your entire output or one technique, period or series. Note the cut-off date of each version.
- Start from a stable inventory. Assign each work a unique identifier that stays the same even if the title, owner or location changes. The master artwork record: annotated template offers an ODS workbook and CSV exports to get that inventory started.
- Use the template as a base archive, not as a finished catalogue raisonné. Its fields let you gather identification, files, process, exhibitions, publications, conservation and current status. A catalogue also requires critical research, cross-checked sources, editorial categories and reasoned decisions.
- Keep public data apart from restricted data. The downloadable resource keeps owner, location, price, invoice, intermediary and insurance value separate. Do not publish that data just because it is in your internal archive.
- Recover older material. Gather photographs, invoices, emails, contracts, exhibition catalogues, studio notebooks and digital files. The early years are usually the least well documented.
- Separate facts, testimony and hypotheses. Show what comes from a document, what someone remembers and what the team concludes. Do not present an approximate date as an exact one.
- Record the gaps too. Lost, destroyed or untraced works deserve their own entry if there is enough evidence that they existed.
- Keep a history of changes. A digital platform should make it possible to see what was corrected, when and on what grounds. A spreadsheet works as a starting point, but a growing catalogue may need a system that keeps versions and more complex relationships.
- Protect data and documents. Do not publish addresses, contact details or financial terms without a legal basis or consent. Keep the internal archive distinct from public information.
- Plan who will look after it. Decide who will manage the catalogue, where the originals will be kept and how the project can continue if the artist or the original team are no longer there.
- Make backups. Keep at least one separate copy and check regularly that the files still open.
On the open conversation
This guide explains what a catalogue raisonné is and how it differs from authentication. The reading of its power to include or exclude is my own interpretation. If you have worked on a catalogue raisonné or an artist's archive and notice an error or an omission, the guide remains open.