Behind the seal.

ArtFirma is a partnership between developer Sergey Evstegneev of 123Automate and artist Alexander James Hamilton, founder of Distil Ennui Studio™, established in 1990. Together, we combine secure technology with four decades of art world experience.

Our purpose is simple: to preserve the connection between artists and their works, beyond the lifetime of any website, company or individual.

For questions or requests, write to contact@artfirma.com.

• Signed by you. You control your digital signature. A gallery or artist’s estate can sign with its own registered key, and the record clearly identifies who signed. ArtFirma cannot sign for you. How the signature works · Galleries · Heirs & estates
• Secure. Each scan generates a new security code, allowing the online check to detect copied or reused links. Your signature also protects the record against alteration. How the security works
• Beyond your lifetime. Your artwork’s record and photographs are preserved in an independent public archive. Saved copies of the verification page can check your digital signature even offline. If ArtFirma ever closes
• Your client data stays yours. Collectors need no account and provide no personal details to check a work. We do not track who checks it or where. Artists register with a name, website or profile page, and public key. What we store

• Seals in sets of 20, 40, 60, 100 or 500. Order on the order page, with free UPS tracked delivery. Your delivery address is used only for shipping and is never published.
• No subscription. Nothing to renew. The app, artwork registry and verification service are free.
• Free to check, for everyone. Anyone with an NFC-enabled phone can check a seal. No app or account needed.

• Artists: your chosen name, the website or profile page used to confirm your signing key, and your public key. We never receive your twelve secret words. Registration requires no ID document, home address or phone number.
• Artworks: the details and photographs you publish. These form the artwork’s public record.
• Collectors: no account or personal details are needed to check a seal. Buyers’ names are never requested or published.
• Security: the online chip check keeps only the chip’s serial number, its latest scan counter and two timestamps. We use no cookies or analytics and do not track who checks a work or from where.
• Read our privacy policy for full details.

The signature and record. Verification confirms that the registered signing key was used to link this seal to the artwork’s record, and that the record has not been altered. The record identifies the signer: the artist, gallery or estate. The online security check also confirms that the seal’s response comes from the original chip.

The physical artwork. ArtFirma does not examine or appraise artworks. Verification is not an expert attribution, a valuation or proof of ownership. The seal has safeguards against tampering, but these cannot rule out its transfer to another object. Always compare the recorded details and photographs with the work itself.

Your signed records are designed to remain accessible and verifiable beyond ArtFirma and its website.

• Records preserved independently. Every record and photograph is copied to Arweave, a permanent public archive, 30 days after publication. This allows time to withdraw content following a complaint before it enters the archive. See Published content. The verification page locates and checks each record using the digital fingerprint stored on the seal.
• Preservation paid for in advance. Arweave charges once at upload, with an endowment designed to support at least 200 years of storage. Small files are stored free; ArtFirma pays for photographs. Files can be retrieved through different archive gateways, and the verification page automatically tries two.
• Signature checks without our servers. The verification page is a single downloadable file containing artists’ public keys. A saved copy can check digital signatures in your browser, even offline. Copies are preserved on Arweave and CERN’s Zenodo. Viewing the artwork’s details and photographs also requires the archived files or your own saved copies.
• Seal links independent of our domain. Seals use purl.org, a redirect service created by OCLC in 1995 and operated by the Internet Archive since 2016. It currently directs scans to artfirma.com, whose registration is paid until 2036. If ArtFirma closes, we will redirect seal links to the archived verification page. A trusted person also holds the necessary account access.
• An alternative if a link stops opening. The seal’s link contains the data needed to check its signature. In Chrome on Android, open any copy of the verification page and select Check a seal with this phone to read the seal directly. On other phones, copy the seal’s link into Check a link by hand on the verification page.
• A public verification method. Our published specification explains how to build an independent verifier, without ArtFirma’s software or servers.
• What would stop: the optional online live chip check and registration of new artists through our service. Preserved records and existing digital signatures would remain independently checkable.

• Scope of the service. The app, verification page and registry are provided as available, without warranties except those required by law. ArtFirma does not examine or authenticate physical artworks. A check confirms only what is explained under What verification confirms.
• Notice before closing. If we close the service, we will give at least six months’ notice on this page and the verification page. This allows time to save records and, if desired, run your own verification page. Existing signatures and preserved records remain checkable as described under If ArtFirma ever closes.
• Liability and applicable law. Our liability is limited to the amount you paid us for seals, except where the law does not permit this limit. Your statutory consumer rights remain unaffected. Spanish law applies.
• For questions or complaints, write to contact@artfirma.com.

Published content

• What may be published. Artists must not publish illegal material, content that infringes another person’s rights, or other people’s personal data without their consent. This includes buyers’ details and information identifying photographic subjects.
• Reporting a concern. Email contact@artfirma.com with the subject “Takedown”, the seal link or work number, and a description of the concern. If confirmed, we remove the record and its photographs from our registry within seven days of receiving the complaint, usually sooner. We may also revoke the publisher’s signing key.
• Before permanent archiving. Records and photographs enter Arweave 30 days after publication, allowing time to address complaints before they become permanently stored. Once archived, files cannot be deleted from Arweave. If content is withdrawn after archiving, our verification page stops displaying it and we ask archive gateways to block access.

Artists, galleries, estates and museums can keep the verification page and artwork records in their own hands:

1. Your own address. Register a free redirect on purl.org, run by the Internet Archive, or use your own domain directly, such as https://verify.yourstudio.com/. Set this in the app under ⚙ → Verify page address before signing your seals. A PURL redirect can be updated if you change your domain or hosting. If you use your own domain directly, you must keep renewing it.
2. Your own verification page. Download the verification page from this site and host it on your website or any static hosting service. It is a single file that checks signatures without ArtFirma’s servers.
3. Your own records and photographs. The app saves these to a folder you choose. Publish them alongside your verification page in a folder named r/.

Test your PURL redirect before setting it in the app: open https://purl.org/<your-domain>/v?u=TEST, replacing <your-domain> with your registered PURL path. It should open the verification page. If it does not, check that it is configured as a partial redirect.

Existing signatures remain valid wherever the verification page is hosted: they depend on your signing key, not on where the page lives.