provenance
n. C / Un. the history of where an object came from and who owned it in the past. It is often used to prove that a piece of art or an old object is real.
n. the place of origin or earliest known history of something. In the context of art or archaeology, refers to the documented record of ownership used to guide authenticity and quality assessments.
The museum is checking the provenance of the painting.
Without a clear provenance, the auction house cannot guarantee that the vase is a genuine Ming dynasty artifact.
The digital provenance of the data allows researchers to trace every modification back to the original source, ensuring the integrity of the final results in the peer-reviewed study.
Borrowed from French provenance (“origin”), from Middle French provenant, present participle of provenir (“come forth, arise”), from Latin provenio (“to come forth”).
Uncountable when referring to the general concept of origin; countable when referring to a specific record or history of an item.