Certificate of Authenticity
Every work that leaves the Barbara Romain Estate carries a Certificate of Authenticity. Not as a formality — as the first entry in that piece's permanent record.
Barbara Romain painted for more than three decades, exhibited nationally and internationally, and died in 2024 leaving an archive of over four hundred works. The estate's job now is to make sure that every piece released into the world can be traced, verified and trusted — by the person who buys it, and by whoever owns it fifty years from now.
What your certificate records
Each certificate is issued to a single work and states:
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The artist, the title, and the year Barbara made the original
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The medium, the dimensions, and — for Estate Editions — the edition number and the year the print was produced
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A unique Certificate ID, assigned by the estate and belonging to that piece alone
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The signature of the Estate Custodian
How the certificate is tied to the artwork
The Certificate ID is not printed on the certificate alone. The same identifier appears on the label affixed to the back of the work, in the estate's own inventory of the archive, on the listing the piece was sold from, and in the estate's collector register.
Every work also carries physical security features applied at the estate — an embossed estate seal, a serialized identification label, and tamper-evident sealing. A certificate and a canvas that do not match are not a matched pair, and the estate can tell.
Why the estate keeps a register
When a work is sold, the estate records the certificate, the work, the edition number, and the collector. That record is what makes provenance possible.
Provenance is simply the answer to a question a future buyer will ask: where has this been, and who says so? Most artists' estates cannot answer it, because nobody wrote it down at the beginning. This one is being written down at the beginning.
If you resell, gift, or bequeath a Barbara Romain work, the certificate travels with it. Contact the estate, and we will update the register to keep the chain of ownership unbroken.
Estate Editions
Estate Editions are strictly limited, hand-numbered, and produced from the original artwork to museum-grade archival standards. The edition size is fixed at release and never increased. Each edition is authorized by the estate and issued with its own certificate.
If you have a Barbara Romain work and no certificate
Works sold during Barbara's lifetime predate this system, and many have no paperwork at all. That does not make them less authentic — it makes them less documented. If you own a Barbara Romain painting, print or ceramic and would like it recorded in the estate archive, we would like to hear from you. Every work we can locate makes the record more complete.