Shaping the Due Diligence Standard:

This thesis offers a historical and analytic perspective on the influence of societal and technological developments on the Dutch art market from the 1990s onwards. Its aim is to link the past developments regarding Nazi-looted art and stolen art databases to the challenges of the present and offer a more insightful analysis for future research into the Dutch art market, its due diligence standard and as well as offer insight into the current problem of looted colonial art. In the 1990s, the strictly legal paradigm of dealing with Nazi-looted art was no longer considered sufficient. The post-war idea of “moving on” became morally and socially unacceptable and (inter)national agreements were made to come to a “just and fair” solution regarding Nazi-looted art and its restitution. In the Netherlands, this resulted in two projects regarding museum acquisitions to undo past wrongs, which, aided by technological developments saw an increased focus on provenance research by museums and the emergence of (inter)national provenance research networks. Other art market participants, such as dealers, operated and still operate at a much further distance from the public. There are two issues facing this part of the Dutch art market: a lack of transparency and an absence of concise legislation regarding due diligence and provenance research. Possible solutions would include the creation of a legal due diligence standard and improving transparency with a system of checks and balances. Technological developments, such as online trade registers and stolen art databases, can be greatly effective in improving both legislation on and transparency of the Dutch art market. The age of the internet, which has been fully integrated in our society, facilitates many ways of sharing information, allows us to look up if an artwork might be stolen, enable the creation of online registers and can be used by responsible (law enforcement) agencies to track art market participants. To this day, however, these developments are hindered by database fragmentation and inaccessibility.