Collectors, artists, galleries, and museums typically insure art against theft, fire, and flood. However, insuring against misattribution or forgery, which can quickly tank a work’s value, has proven stickier due to the inherent subjectivity involved in art authentication. ArtDiscovery, a scientific art analysis firm with offices in London and New York, however, says it has solved the problem.
The firm recently launched what it called “the world’s first insured authenticity guarantee for artworks.” CEO Denis Moiseev told ARTnews that its solution combines “connoisseurship and provenance research with laboratory science and proprietary AI, and then backs the conclusion with an insurance policy from an A+ rated global insurer.” If a certified attribution is later proven incorrect, the policy will cover financial loss to the artwork’s owner.
“The market has previously relied on ‘guarantees’ offered by the selling party, with no third-party warranty in case things went wrong, so you’re either relying on the good will of the seller to return the cash, or litigation—with little success,” Moiseev said. “Authenticity has been the art market’s blind spot for too long. We built a framework that replaces belief with proof, evidence you can act on, and a guarantee you can bank on. For collectors and sellers, that means confidence at the moment of exchange. For lenders, it converts a historically uninsurable risk into one that can finally be underwritten.”
Added ArtDiscovery CFO Steven Maslow, “Our insured certificate is priced at 60 basis points of the certified value, reflecting the strength of our evidentiary process and insurer backing. It aligns incentives across buyers, sellers, advisers, and lenders, and travels with the artwork as a transferable warranty.”
François Deswerte, the managing partner at Swiss Private Finance, a lending broker that arranges loans for clients including those that use artworks as collateral, told ARTnews that “this type of guarantee is a game-changer for the art finance industry, where doubtful authenticity is the main hurdle.”
The art authentication industry is notoriously murky and opinion-based, which often leads to multi-million dollar lawsuits filed by disgruntled collectors who have been told works are not genuine.
Several AI art authentication companies have sprung up over the last few years, promising to leverage technology to provide iron-clad authenticity analysis. One of these is Hephaestus Analytical, a London-based tech company that authenticates artworks by using a combination of AI, provenance research, and advanced chemical analysis and that acquired ArtDiscovery in January.
At the time, Moiseev said ArtDiscovery’s pigment database, spectral libraries, and team of conservators will enable Hephaestus “to unlock new possibilities in art authentication, making it more precise, accessible, and impactful than ever,” adding that “AI is a tool, not a silver bullet, and should be used alongside human expertise and scientific testing.”
London dealer James Butterwick, who specializes in Russian and Ukrainian modernism, told ARTnews he has used ArtDiscovery’s services to confirm the authenticity of paintings. “As a dealer, I can look a client in the eye and say, this is not merely my conviction; it’s a conclusion you can rely on and provides the final piece in the puzzle,” he said.
Some critics, however, are wary of AI’s growing role in art authentication. Simon Gillespie, who runs an eponymous art authentication and restoration studio in London, previously told ARTnews that he thinks of himself as a “top-class surgeon” whose “subtlety of touch” will always be required over AI. He said that while it’s inevitable humans will be substituted for technology in some aspects of authentication, he believes that any company using AI to fully attribute a painting “should be treated with [substantial] doubt.”
