Valeria Napoleone is a collector, patron and philanthropist who has focused her collecting on elevating and promoting the voices of female artists working internationally.

Collections are a passion, and whatever their financial value, they require diligence when it comes to their care.

At Smith Greenfield, we have been insuring collections of art, antiques and more for over 25 years. Drawing from our experience, here we share with you some considerations for risk management and insurance.

Record keeping

It’s important to accurately catalogue your collection detailing where it is kept (on loan, at home, storage) and checking all art documentation to confirm both provenance and value. This will almost certainly help in arranging insurances and without doubt will make any insurance claim run more smoothly.

Our friend and colleague, Tess Amodeo-Vickery, visits the studio of Marta Abbott, a Czech-American artist working in Rome, Italy, especially for CURA Art.

Marta’s studio is located in the district of Portuense 201, a 1912 dairy farm-turned-studio space that was given new life thanks to an urban renewal initiative in the city. This space is a unique embodiment of the Eternal City, as the converted cowsheds of this borghetto or ‘hamlet’ give the sense of traveling back in time - a bucolic haven smack in the center of Rome’s bustling urban center. It seems an ideal setting for Marta, who works with handmade natural inks, earth pigments and other organic and non-traditional materials.

The artist as collector was the subject of a show at London’s National Gallery in 2016. Entitled ‘Painter’s Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck’, the exhibition presented the private collections of several masters of canvas painting from Western art history.

‘Painter’s Paintings’ revealed the chains of painting technique and subject matter linking artists, through the work they chose to hang in their homes and studios, and which ultimately inspired and influenced their own creative practise. The exhibition demonstrated what one great artist can learn from another and their motivation to surround themselves with works by others. These pieces are tokens of friendships, status symbols, and financial investments but most significantly sources of artistic inspiration.

As companies, Cura Art and Flynn & Giovani Art Provenance Research utilise the expertise of many specialists in our field, in order to best serve our clients. We have collaborated to bring together our thoughts on the importance of research in the field of private collecting. Our hope is that our combined insight can demonstrate the shared concern for supporting collectors with the responsible management of their collection.