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name: artbull-evidence-and-sources description: Use when assembling and handling the non-visual evidence for an Art Bulletin article — objects, archives, primary documents, provenance, and technical findings — and citing them rigorously. Art-historical claims must rest on verifiable sources, not assertion. Guides evidence handling; it does not fabricate documents or attributions.

Evidence & Sources (artbull-evidence-and-sources)

Beyond the object itself, an Art Bulletin argument rests on documentary and material evidence: archives, inventories, contracts, letters, sale records, provenance chains, and technical/conservation findings. This skill governs how you gather, weigh, and cite that evidence so an expert reviewer trusts it. The looking lives in artbull-visual-analysis; here you handle everything else.

When to trigger

• Building the documentary basis for dating, attribution, patronage, or reception
• Reconstructing a provenance or ownership history
• Weighing conflicting documents or an uncertain attribution
• A reviewer questioned a source, a transcription, or a chain of provenance

Handling the evidence

1. Go to primary sources. Archival documents, inventories, contracts, wills, correspondence, sale and exhibition records — cite the repository, collection, and shelf/inventory mark so another scholar can find them.
2. Quote and translate carefully. Give original-language quotations where the wording matters, with accurate translations; note editorial interventions in transcriptions.
3. Build provenance rigorously. Document the ownership chain with sources for each link; flag gaps honestly, and surface any spoliation / restitution concerns rather than burying them.
4. Weigh attribution evidence. Combine documentary, visual, and technical grounds; state the degree of certainty ("attributed to," "circle of," "documented as") and what would change it.
5. Use technical art history where it bears. X-radiography, infrared reflectography, pigment and support analysis, dendrochronology — cite the report and who performed it; do not overstate what science proves.
6. Distinguish evidence from inference. Separate what a document says from what you infer; keep silent documents from being made to speak.

Anti-patterns

• Asserting a date or attribution with no documentary or technical basis
• Citing a source you have not seen (or a digital surrogate as if it were the original) without saying so
• Provenance with unexplained gaps presented as continuous
• Over-claiming what a scientific report establishes
• Burying a restitution / authenticity problem the evidence raises

Source-strength ledger an Art Bulletin referee will apply

Specialist referees for the College Art Association's quarterly weigh the kind and traceability of evidence, not its volume.

Evidence type	Trusted when…	Referee distrusts when…	Strengthening move
Archival document	Repository, collection, and shelf-mark cited; consulted in person	Cited from a secondary source as if seen	Verify the original, or name the surrogate used
Provenance link	Each owner change has its own source	A continuous chain papering over a gap	Flag the gap; never present a break as continuity
Technical report	Method, analyst, and date named; claims stay within the science	"Science proves" overreach (IRR, XRF, dendro)	State what the report can and cannot establish

Worked vignette: reconstructing a contested provenance

Suppose an article dates a devotional diptych through its ownership history. A 1623 estate inventory in a named municipal archive (repository, fondo, and busta cited) records a "diptych with the Virgin," the earliest secure link; the chain then jumps to an 1890s dealer ledger and a 1931 museum accession file, leaving a gap c. 1650–1890 the draft must flag rather than smooth over. A restitution concern surfaces — the 1931 accession passed through a dealer active in a region of known wartime spoliation — so the article notes a looted-art database check rather than burying it. Technical evidence stays in its lane: dendrochronology of the support yields a date consistent with the dating, reported as corroboration, not proof. The certainty term lands at "documented from 1623, with a provenance gap," naming the document that would close it.

Referee objections about sources, and the disciplinary fix

• "You cite a document you have not seen." Distinguish autopsy from secondhand citation; where you relied on a transcription or digital surrogate, say so in the note.
• "A restitution / authenticity problem is buried." Foreground spoliation or forgery concerns the evidence raises; candor about provenance ethics is a strength.

Calibration anchors (hedge where uncertain)

• The apparatus carrying this evidence lives in Chicago-style endnotes (CMOS notes; confirm the current edition against the journal's current submission guidelines), documenting repositories, shelf-marks, and transcriptions in full — with original-language quotation and translation where wording bears weight for a global, multi-period readership.

Output format

【Claim supported】dating / attribution / patronage / reception
【Primary sources】repository + collection + shelf-mark
【Provenance】chain with sources; gaps flagged
【Technical evidence】report + analyst (if any)
【Certainty】documented / attributed / circle-of, and what would change it
【Next】artbull-images-and-permissions

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — archives, provenance indexes, technical-art-history resources
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — Chicago notes citation (CMOS ch. 14)