# What a Collector's Other Objects Prove > A name in a provenance line is a claim about a set, not about one object. Eleven of the forty objects the Metropolitan links to the nineteenth-century goldsmith Reinhold Vasters carry one collector's credit line, in a nearly unbroken run of accession numbers. > The Study - 2026-09-01 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/what-a-collectors-other-objects-prove/ ## Key points - A collector's name in a provenance line is testable, because collectors do not buy one thing. A search of the Metropolitan Museum's public collection API on 1 September 2026 returns 903 records for the phrase Bequest of Benjamin Altman and 2,065 for Edward C. Moore Collection. - Forty records in that collection match the name Reinhold Vasters, the Aachen goldsmith whose working drawings reached the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1919 and revealed how much nineteenth-century work had been passing as Renaissance. Eleven of the forty carry the credit line Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913. - Those eleven are not scattered. Their accession numbers run from 14.40.654 to 14.40.666 with almost no gaps, which is what a single collecting field looks like once it has been accessioned in a block. - The Rospigliosi Cup is 14.40.667. It is the next number in that run, it arrived in the same bequest, and the Museum now dates it probably about 1840 to 1850, or somewhat earlier. The neighbours are part of the case. - The same forty records also run through the Robert Lehman Collection, given in 1975, and the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, given in 1982. Three American collections assembled decades apart were buying from the same supply of invented Renaissance goldsmiths' work. - The test cuts both ways. Edward C. Moore's 2,065 objects are a coherent, documented body of Islamic and Near Eastern metalwork bought by a working silversmith, and the astrolabe of 1291 and the fourteenth-century inlaid basin in this archive both sit inside it under 1891 accession numbers. ## A collector's name is a claim about a set, and the set is checkable ## The Altman goldsmiths' work is now a nineteenth-century group ## The neighbours in an accession run are part of the evidence ## The same two names run through three separate American collections ## The test also confirms, and Edward C. Moore is the case for that ## How to run the test on a name you are given ## Why this archive is free to read The single most useful habit in provenance research is refusing to look at an object alone. A collector's name in a line is a claim about a set, museums with open data will show you the set in a minute, and the accession numbers on either side of the one you care about will often tell you more than the record in front of you does. That is how the Rospigliosi Cup reads differently today: not because anybody has proved anything new about the cup, but because the eleven objects that entered the Museum immediately before it are now attributed to two nineteenth-century goldsmiths, and a great object at the end of that run has to be read as part of it. The same habit acquits as often as it convicts. Two thousand coherent objects accessioned in one block in 1891 on the death of a working silversmith is a fact that no individual record could establish on its own, and it is available to anybody willing to search the credit line instead of the provenance. ## Questions **Why should I look at a collector's other objects when researching one work?** Because collectors buy in fields rather than one at a time, so a name in a provenance line implies a set. If the set exists, is coherent and is documented, the line gains support. If no set can be found, the line is an assertion with nothing to check it against. **Who was Reinhold Vasters?** A goldsmith working at Aachen in the nineteenth century whose work passed as Renaissance goldsmiths' work in major collections. Portfolios of his working drawings reached the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1919, and matching them against objects in museums is what exposed the scale of the problem. **How many Vasters objects are in the Altman bequest at the Metropolitan?** Of the forty records in the Museum's collection that match his name, eleven carry the credit line Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913, with accession numbers running from 14.40.654 to 14.40.666. Two of the eleven are attributed to Alfred Andre rather than to Vasters. **Does the Metropolitan still call the Rospigliosi Cup a work by Cellini?** No. Its public record names no maker and dates the cup probably about 1840 to 1850, or somewhat earlier, and gives its accession number as 14.40.667 in the Altman bequest. **Does finding suspect objects in a collection discredit the whole collection?** No, and the Altman bequest itself shows why. The same bequest contains a mid-sixteenth-century Iznik dish, accession 14.40.727, whose attribution has not been disturbed. The test is applied to a field within a collection, not to a collector's name as a whole. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, public collection API, search endpoint. Queried 1 September 2026: the phrase Bequest of Benjamin Altman returns 903 records, Edward C. Moore Collection returns 2,065, and Reinhold Vasters returns 40. Each of the forty object records was then read individually for its accession number, maker field, date and credit line. - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection API record for the Rospigliosi Cup, object 192708, accession 14.40.667, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913. Read 1 September 2026 for the medium of gold, partly enamelled, with pearls, the dimensions of 19.7 by 21.6 by 22.9 cm, the date given as probably ca. 1840 to 1850 or somewhat earlier, and Gallery 556. - [3] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection API record for the ewer with cover, object 192700, accession 14.40.658a and b, maker given as Reinhold Vasters, dated second half 19th century, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913. - [4] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection API record for the astrolabe of Umar ibn Yusuf ibn Umar ibn Ali ibn Rasul al-Muzaffari, object 444408, accession 91.1.535a to h, dated 690 AH/1291 CE, credit line Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891. - [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection API record for Basin with Figural Imagery, object 444523, accession 91.1.521, early 14th century, brass raised, engraved and inlaid with silver and gold, Gallery 455, credit line Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891. - [6] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection API record for the Iznik dish, object 446648, accession 14.40.727, mid-16th century, stonepaste painted in turquoise and two hues of blue, Islamic Art, Gallery 460, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913. - [7] Victoria and Albert Museum, public collections API. Queried 1 September 2026 for Reinhold Vasters, returning 1,086 records, including the working drawings accessioned in 1919 under numbers of the form E.2786-1919, E.2787-1919, E.2789-1919 and E.2791-1919.