Register

Register an item on the Art Loss Register database to include it in all our searches of items on the art market. This will maximise your chances of recovering any items that are lost, stolen or looted. Registering items with other types of issues will allow us to alert you if they appear on the market in an unauthorised sale and warn a potential buyer of the risks.

The database currently holds 700,000 items. The ALR holds all the information in strictest confidence and there is no public access to the data held. The range of items which can be registered on the database is huge, including paintings, drawings, sculpture, antiquities, furniture, jewellery, watches and clocks, musical instruments, silverware, coins and medals, ceramics, religious items, arms and armour, tapestries, classic cars, toys and collectibles.

Registration after a loss or a theft means that you will benefit from the ALR’s extensive worldwide checks on sales of valuable possessions. The widespread use by ALR investigators and law enforcement authorities throughout the world of the database maximises the chance that any attempt to sell your item will be discovered. Over 400,000 searches are carried out each year on items prior to sale, on behalf of government and law enforcement, auction houses, art fairs, dealers, banks and lenders, museums and galleries, pawnbrokers and private individuals.

In the event that the ALR discovers that your item is being offered for sale, you will be contacted to determine the legitimacy of the sale. Working with the relevant law enforcement agency, the ALR will investigate any unauthorised sale and assist in the recovery of the item to you, the legitimate owner.

Any uniquely identifiable item can be registered online. Loss registrations are charged on a basis of £15, €17.50 or US$20 per item (plus VAT where applicable), but please contact us directly in case of a large theft.

Valuable items can also be registered while in your ownership or subsequent to a loss or a theft. Items which are registered before loss or theft, are held in the ALR positive database. The positive database is of particular appeal for collections where inventories are not regularly checked or updated, where an owner or lender has a partial interest in an object, or when entrusting items to third parties.

You may complete a registration form by clicking the ‘Register a loss’ button at the bottom of this page, or log in to the ‘My Account’ area. For many objects that have been stolen, or if you wish to register an item that is subject to a dispute, pledged as collateral, or to record your ownership, please contact us directly.

The Art Loss Register (ALR) database consists of over 700,000 items, including paintings, drawings, sculpture, antiquities, furniture, silver, clocks, ceramics, religious items, jewellery, watches, arms and armour, tapestries, musical instruments, coins, medals, and collectibles.

Registrations include stolen, missing and looted works, as well as those subject to title disputes, freezing orders and financial liens, and within permanent collections. The database also includes details of works that have been reported with authenticity issues by police and foremost experts.

Finally, to provide a specialist service for cultural property, we have also launched the Cultural Heritage at Risk Database (CHARD) to register objects in situ at museums, warehouses and archaeological sites, to ensure that if such items are stolen they can be identified if offered for sale. Find out more about CHARD, or get in touch directly for more information on any of these areas.

Once registered, an item will remain on the database until recovery or the resolution of the claim against it. We carry out over 400,000 searches of items on the market each year on behalf of law enforcement agencies, more than 130 subscribing auction houses, art fairs, dealers, museums, pawnbrokers, and private collectors. If a registered item appears on the market, there is therefore a very good chance that we would identify it, at which point we would immediately contact you for you to negotiate the item’s return or reach a settlement.

Alongside the registration of stolen and lost items, we also register objects within collections to ensure that the owner is notified whenever the object is offered for sale or a loan. We call this ‘Positive Registration’, and it is offered particularly to large public, private and corporate collections – especially those based in multiple locations or where objects are often consigned.

In addition, artworks pledged as collateral or subject to an ownership dispute can be registered on our database so that you can be informed if and when the object is offered for sale and take steps to protect that interest if necessary.

Find out more about Positive Registration, ownership interests, collateral and disputes, or contact us directly to register items under this service.

You can see the Terms & Conditions here. If you have any further questions, please contact us directly.

There is a small initial administrative fee of £15, €17.50 or $17.50 (plus VAT where applicable) to register a stolen item. Beyond this we strive to ensure that fees do not hinder the identification of stolen art works so further fees are only payable if a registered item is located. At that point a ‘Location Fee’ of 5% of the ultimate net benefit to the registrant is charged. This means that if the object is located by the ALR, we will pass all of the information we have discovered about the item’s location onto the registrant as soon as possible, and put them in touch with the current holder. If, at the end of the process, the object is recovered or subject to a settlement, a fee of 5% of the benefit to the registrant is then charged.

If the registrant would also like to benefit from our years of experience and success in the recovery of stolen and looted artworks and appoints us to represent them to recover the object, we charge a ‘Recovery Fee’ of 20% of the ultimate net benefit and no Location Fee is payable.

If you have any questions about these fees, do not hesitate to get in touch.

 

Register a loss