Wealth management and art: certified evidence for family collections

Private banks are bringing art back into wealth management. Advisory desks for art and collectibles now help families buy and sell, plan succession, give to institutions and borrow against their collections. Every one of these services rests on the same thing: reliable evidence about the artwork. That is what AerariumChain provides.

A public example: in 2025 Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management extended its art advisory service to Asia, with support that ranges from acquisitions and sales to collection management, art lending, philanthropy and succession planning.

Art is part of the patrimony, and it behaves differently

For many ultra high net worth families, art is a significant share of their wealth and the part they care about most. It is also the hardest to manage alongside the rest of the portfolio. A financial asset has a statement. A painting has an invoice, a few photographs, a location and the memory of the person who bought it. When the bank has to advise on that work, lend against it or help pass it to the next generation, the first question is always the same: what exactly is this object, and in what condition is it today?

Four moments where evidence decides

• Succession and legacy. Heirs, executors and advisors need to know which works exist, where they are and what state they are in at a given date. Disputes start where documentation is thin.
• Lending against art. When a collection secures a loan, the bank needs to document the identity and condition of the collateral at the start and check it again over time.
• Philanthropy. Donating or lending a work to a museum is easier when its identity and condition are documented to institutional standards.
• Insurance and sales. A measured, dated state of the object supports coverage, claims and the sale itself.

A certified twin for every important work

With the AerariumChain kit an operator captures each work on site, where it hangs or where it is stored: 3D geometry down to 0.05 mm and 101-megapixel photography, in a few minutes per artwork. The fingerprint of every file is written to a public blockchain at the moment of capture, so the state of the work has a certain timestamp and anyone authorized can verify that nothing has been altered since. In the HUB each work carries its record, its versions and its full history, and scans taken over time can be compared at sub-millimeter level with CARE.

Discretion by design

Private clients expect privacy first. In the HUB everything is private by default and access follows roles: the family, the relationship manager, the art advisor, the family office, the insurer and the appraiser each see only what they should. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest and hosted in the region the bank chooses; where required, storage and processing can stay on the bank's own hardware. The family owns every scan and every model, and export in open formats is always available (security and data sovereignty).

What the bank can offer its clients

1. A certified inventory of the family collection, with identity and condition documented work by work.
2. A private dossier that advisors, executors and insurers can consult with controlled access.
3. Periodic checks on works used as collateral or lent to exhibitions.
4. A clear base for succession and philanthropic plans, ready when the family needs it.

For an art advisory desk this turns a relationship built on trust into one built on trust and evidence. If you lead art and collectibles advisory or private client services at a bank, talk to us: we will show you a family collection documented with certified twins and how access works for every party involved.