Provenance (from the French provenir, "to come from") is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a work of art. The primary purpose of tracing the provenance of a work of art is to provide contextual and circumstantial evidence for its original production, by establishing, as far as practicable, its history and sequences of formal ownership. The practice has a particular value in helping authenticate objects. Comparative techniques and expert opinions may also be used to these ends, but establishing provenance is essentially a matter of documentation.

The provenance of works of art is of great importance, especially to their owner. A good provenance increases the value of artwork, and establishing provenance may help confirm the date, artist, and the subject of a painting. It may confirm whether a work is genuinely of the period it seems to date from. The provenance of paintings can help resolve ownership disputes. Documented evidence of provenance for an object can help to establish that it has not been altered and is not a forgery, a reproduction, or stolen artwork. Provenance helps assign the work to a known artist, and a documented history can be of use in helping to prove ownership.

The quality of provenance of an important work of art can make a considerable difference to its selling price in the market; this is affected by the degree of certainty of the provenance and in many cases by the strong evidence that the work is authentic.

Ideally provenance documentation evidences an unbroken chain of custody of an artwork leading from the current owner all the way back to the original artist. Certification of the initial record of the object's creation is the single most important step in the chain. Recording the details of the original work in The Registry Bank, along with all subsequent transfers, with a certificate signed by the Artist's own hand is extremely strong evidence of authenticity.

While it has always been a good idea to provide a proper Certificate of Authenticity (COA) to the purchaser of your artwork that attests to the authenticity of their purchase, that is no longer enough. Combining this, with registration on The Registry Bank, confirms the validity of the COA for your Purchaser to prove that their artwork is genuine upon resale or transfer of title to another collector or gallery. Currently, Certificates of Authenticity are used as primary documentation of originality for limited edition art, however certificates themselves are often open to question. They are easily duplicated and falsified, especially with today's advancements in digital technology.