Have you ever wondered how works of art make it into museums? How do we learn what happens to an object between the time it’s made and when it might be put on display? I spoke with Dr. Joanna M. Gohmann, object historian and provenance researcher at the National Museum of Asian Art, to find out what kind of work goes into unearthing and documenting the lives of objects. We talked about her professional background, the tools she uses to dig into the lives of historical figures, and the evolution of the field of provenance research at the Smithsonian and beyond. If this topic interests you, dive into our blog series Unseen Art History for spotlights on individual object histories from NMAA’s collections.

All interview questions are indicated in bold.