Reading a Catalogue Entry as a Contract

The warranty has a typographic boundary, and almost nothing is inside it

A catalogue entry reads as scholarship and functions as an offer document. The two roles are separated by typography. Christie's authenticity warranty is given only for information shown in upper case type in the first line of the lot description, which the conditions define as the Heading, and it does not apply to any information other than in the Heading even if that information is also shown in upper case. Everything below the first line is description, not warranty.

Sotheby's reaches the same position from the other direction, by enumeration. Its disclaimer states that neither the house nor the seller gives any guarantee, representation or warranty as to the correctness of the catalogue or other images or descriptions of the condition, completeness, size, quality, rarity, value, importance, medium, frame, provenance, exhibition history, or literary or historical relevance of any lot, and that no statement anywhere, oral or written, will be deemed such a warranty or an assumption of liability.

Read that list against what a serious buyer actually relies on. Provenance is in it. Exhibition history is in it. Literature, under the heading of literary or historical relevance, is in it. Medium and size are in it. The parts of a catalogue entry that a curator would cite, that a scholar would check and that a collector would pay a premium for are outside the warranty at both houses. What is warranted is the line at the top, and the line at the top is short.

What is warranted is a negative, not a positive

Sotheby's provides, as principal, a guarantee that the lot is not a counterfeit, defined as a lot that in the house's reasonable opinion is an imitation created to deceive as to authorship, origin, date, age, period, culture or source, where the correct description of those matters is not reflected in the catalogue description. It adds that no lot shall be considered a counterfeit by reason only of damage, restoration, modification of any kind including repainting or over-painting, or the treatment of gemstones.

Christie's glossary defines authentic as a genuine example, rather than a copy or forgery, of the work of a particular artist, author or manufacturer where the title description says so and is not qualified; or of a work created within a particular period or culture; or of a particular origin or source; or, for gems, made of a stated material. The warranty is that the object is not a fake of the thing named.

Neither house warrants that its attribution is the best available reading of the evidence, that the picture is a good example, or that the scholarship supporting the entry will survive. Those are three different propositions from the one being warranted, and a buyer who believes the catalogue guarantees a right attribution has confused a promise about forgery with a promise about connoisseurship. The distinction is not a technicality; it is the entire allocation of risk in the transaction.

The exclusions carry the weight

Both warranties run for five years from the date of the sale, and both are non-transferable. Sotheby's requires notice in writing on the earlier of three months after the buyer receives any information causing them to question the authenticity or attribution, or the expiry of the guarantee period, so the clock can start long before the five years are up. Both require the claimant to be the original buyer, still the full owner, with the lot free of any third-party claim or interest arising after the sale, and to return the object in the condition it was in at the time of sale. Christie's may require the written opinions of two recognised experts mutually agreed in advance; Sotheby's may require two independent recognised experts, and reserves the right to seek its own further advice.

Then come the grounds of rejection, and they are where the instrument does its real work. A claim may be rejected if the catalogue description accorded with the opinions of scholars and experts generally accepted at the date of sale, or if the description drew attention to a conflict of opinion. It may be rejected if the only way to establish the lot was a counterfeit would have been a process not then generally available or accepted, unreasonably expensive, impractical, or likely to damage the work. It may be rejected where the fault complained of is only damage, restoration or modification. And it may be rejected where the manner in which the description is incorrect does not result in a material loss in value. Christie's states in terms that the warranty does not apply where scholarship has developed since the auction leading to a change in generally accepted opinion.

Put those together and the shape is clear. The warranty covers the case where a picture was a fake and could have been shown to be a fake at the time by means then available. It does not cover the case where the picture is exactly what it was believed to be in the year of sale, and the field later decides otherwise. The second case is how attributions ordinarily fail, and it is the case the warranty is drafted to exclude.

Qualified headings put the lot outside the warranty altogether

Christie's states that the authenticity warranty does not apply to any Heading or part of a Heading which is Qualified, and defines Qualified as limited by a clarification in the lot description or by the use of one of the terms listed under Qualified Headings in the important notices. The published list for pictures, drawings, prints, miniatures, sculpture, installation, video, calligraphy and painted ceramic runs: Attributed to, Studio of and Workshop of, Circle of, Follower of, Manner of, After, and the signature terms. Signed, Dated and Inscribed mean the house's qualified opinion that the artist did so; With signature, With date and With inscription mean its qualified opinion that the mark appears to be by another hand.

Iconotheca has treated elsewhere what these terms mean as statements about connoisseurship. The contractual point is separate and blunter. Christie's states that where a qualified term is used, the house and the consignor assume no risk, liability and responsibility for the authenticity of authorship, or for the lot having been created in the stated period, reign or dynasty. A lot catalogued as Attributed to is not a lot with a weaker warranty. It is a lot with no authenticity warranty at all.

This is why the position of a single word in a heading is worth more than a paragraph of the entry beneath it. Moving a name from unqualified to qualified moves the lot from inside the warranty to outside it, and the price should move with it. Where the qualification appears as a clarification in the body of the description rather than as a listed term, the effect on the warranty is the same and the visual signal is much weaker.

As is, and the condition report as a courtesy

Christie's states that lots are sold as is, in the condition they are in at the time of the sale, without any representation or warranty or assumption of liability of any kind as to condition by the house or the seller. On condition reports it is franker than most readers expect: they are provided free of charge as a convenience and are for guidance only, they offer an opinion, they may not refer to all faults, inherent defects, restoration, alteration or adaptation because the staff who write them are not professional restorers or conservators, and they are not an alternative to taking independent professional advice. It is the buyer's responsibility to have requested, received and considered one.

Sotheby's disclaims on the same footing, selling all lots as is and excluding implied warranties including merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose so far as law allows. Both houses also decline any warranty that a lot is free of export or import restriction, and Sotheby's adds that the denial of a permit or licence will not justify cancellation or rescission of the sale, nor excuse any delay in payment.

Iconotheca has examined separately what condition reports leave out as documents. The contractual reading adds one line to that analysis: the report is not a term of the contract. It is a courtesy issued by people the house has told you are not conservators, and relying on it instead of an independent examination transfers a risk the conditions have already allocated to the buyer.

The remedy is a refund of a number that is larger than the hammer

Both houses limit the remedy to rescission. Christie's states that the buyer's only right under the authenticity warranty is to cancel the sale and receive a refund of the purchase price paid, that the house will not in any circumstances be required to pay more than the purchase price, and that it will not be liable for loss of profits or business, expected savings, loss of opportunity or interest, costs, other damages or expenses. Sotheby's provides for rescission and refund of the purchase price in the currency of the sale, and states that this is the sole remedy in lieu of any other available at law or in equity. There is no indexation. A purchase rescinded five years later returns the money of the year it was paid.

What that refund covers is worth spelling out, because it is not the hammer price. Sotheby's defines the Purchase Price for auction lots as the hammer price plus the buyer's premium, plus the overhead premium where applicable, plus any applicable VAT or sales or use tax, plus any applicable artist's resale right royalty payable by the buyer. The premium is tiered and it changes. Sotheby's New York rates moved on 13 February 2026 to 28 per cent up to $2m, 22 per cent from $2m to $8m and 15 per cent above, from a structure effective 17 February 2025 of 27 per cent up to $1m, 22 per cent to $8m and 15 per cent above. Christie's implemented 27 per cent up to $1.5m, 22 per cent to $8m and 15 per cent above in September 2025.

Take the largest documented public transaction of 2025 and run it. Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was hammered at $205,000,000 at Sotheby's New York on 18 November 2025, under the schedule then in force. Twenty-seven per cent of the first $1m is $270,000; 22 per cent of the next $7m is $1,540,000; 15 per cent of the remaining $197m is $29,550,000. The premium is $31,360,000 and the purchase price $236,360,000, which is the figure reported. That last number, and not the hammer, is what the authenticity warranty would return, and only if the claim survived every exclusion above it.