A Modigliani painting looted during WWII resurfaced decades later at Christie’s (1996) and Sotheby’s (2008) despite a 1946 French restitution order. This case reveals how provenance failures persist—and how Artwork Passports™ could have immediately exposed Nazi-era confiscation and prevented the dispute.

Art fraud has evolved into a systemic issue driven by manipulated provenance and trust-based verification. Building on Shauna Lee Lange’s analysis, this article explores how Artwork Passports™ transform provenance into a verifiable, tamper-resistant infrastructure for authentication and fraud prevention in the global art market.