Are you seeking comprehensive, cumulative textual and illustrated, highly detailed information about an artist or his or her particular work? While the Newman Library has many sources useful to the undergraduate reader occasionally another more complex source is needed.
Recently a reader sought information about the ownership of a particular painting. If after a thorough reference interview the reader persists in the request for information about ownership and possibly other questions, try searching “catalogue raisonné” with the name of the artist. If you do not find what you seek, on the off chance that “catalogue” has been Americanized, try “catalog.” Sometimes “raisonné” is instead spelled “raissonné.”
A catalogue raisonné is a standard scholarly, often very long, detailed, richly illustrated complex advanced work about a particular artist. These works are normally so large and costly that a library serving a strong art program such as Hunter, the New York Public Library, or an art museum library such as the Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Museum of Art will have this type of research resource.
This type of work includes history of the artist, where his or her works were displayed, the sequence of ownership (provenance), birth, death, education, size of the art object and much more. This is distinct from other monographs or biographies, art databases leading to articles, as well as art databases leading to quantitative and other kinds of qualitative information about the sales of art.