German Sales Institutions - Auction houses, galleries, antique book shops (GSI)

Since 2021, a database-driven information system called ‘German Sales Institutions – Auction Houses, Galleries, Antiquarian Bookshops’ has been under construction in Heidelberg. In a first step, the company data of approximately 380 auction houses (1901–1945) whose catalogues have been digitised in German Sales to date were recorded. In a second step, up to May 2025, company data on approximately 570 galleries active between 1871 and 1949 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were recorded as part of the DFG project German Sales Primary Market. The scientific communication infrastructure (WissKI) is used for this purpose. WissKI is a virtual research environment that enables the development of applications in the field of digital humanities using current standards, thus meeting the requirements of art market research.

The data model on which the database is based was developed in Heidelberg specifically for the recording of art trade companies and modelled in WissKI. In addition to recording company names, addresses, key players (owners, managing directors, appraisers/experts, auctioneers, curators, etc.), thematic focuses and company history information, the company data records are linked to digitised publications, external sources and further information on projects. The semantic, ontology-based indexing is not only aimed at visualising the networks of the actors, but also at making the content stored in a triple store available in RDF/XML format in the context of Linked Open Data, so that it can be connected to other projects.