Nanne Dekking, the cofounder and chief executive of Artory. Photo by Anne Timmer
Artory is partnering with Winston Art Group, an art advisory and appraisal firm, to allow collectors to search for works of art already in their collection or to upload new works to Artorys blockchain-secured registry and request certified registration of these works by Winston Art Group, free of charge. After the vetting process, the works of art will be registered with a third-party digital signature, and each owner is provided a digital certificate of ownership, at which point they will be able to communicate with Winston Art Group through Artorys encrypted messaging system.
According to Nanne Dekking, the founder and chief executive of Artory, “we have had so many requests from collectors who love our blockchain technology, our neutral stance in the market” for vetting services that allow them to stay unknown as the owner, while proving the authenticity of a work.
“Artory believes in the importance of the transparency and accessibility of credible data to help grow the art market. The foundation of our product is to give visibility to third-party, independent expertise and secure these trusted data in the blockchain,” he adds. “This partnership lets us empower collectors without risking our data integrity and we couldnt be more thrilled.”
The partnership, revealed last Thursday in The Art Newspapers Art Market Eye newsletter, is Artorys latest in a series of collaborations since it launched in 2016. Last November, the startup partnered with Christies New York to make the auction houses high-profile sale of the Barney A. Ebsworth Collection the first auction to be recorded by blockchain technology. Earlier this year, the company acquired the subscription-only database Auction Club, which is home to sales information from 4,000 auction houses worldwide.
Many in the art trade are still circumspect of what the application of blockchain will ultimately amount to. For example, the integrity of Artorys data is dependent on the quality of the data provided—something Dekking himself admitted at Christies 2018 Art and Tech Summit.
