The problem is rarely the art
When a collection passes down, the difficulties are seldom about the works themselves. They are about expectations that were never discussed: which children want what, whether anyone wants the responsibility of ownership, what the tax position will be, and whether the collection is understood as a family asset or as one person’s life’s work.
Collections that pass smoothly are almost always the ones where those questions were asked while the collector was alive and able to answer them.
The four choices
Most families end up choosing between four routes, often in combination. Keep and share, through a structure that holds the collection for the family as a whole. Divide, allocating works among beneficiaries, which works better when the collection has natural groupings than when it is built around a single masterpiece. Sell, in whole or in part, either to realise value or to fund a division that would otherwise be impossible. Give, to a museum or a foundation, whether outright, by long-term loan, or through arrangements that carry tax relief.
Each route has consequences for the others. A decision to give one work to an institution can change the standing — and the value — of everything that remains.
What to do early
Three pieces of groundwork make every later decision easier, and all three are best done while the collector can contribute.
Documentation. An inventory that records what each work is, where it came from, what it cost, where the paperwork sits and what condition it is in. Most collections carry at least one work whose history lives only in the collector’s memory. When that is lost, the work becomes harder to sell, insure, lend or give.
Valuation. Values for insurance and values for estate purposes are different figures reached by different methods. Families are frequently surprised, in both directions.
Conversation. The most uncomfortable and the most useful. Assumptions about who wants what are wrong more often than they are right, and a death is the worst time to find that out.
Working with the family’s advisers
Succession, gifting and estate planning sit with a family’s lawyers and tax advisers. What may also be needed is a clear understanding of the works themselves: their market value, the options if a sale is considered, and how an institution might respond. That is the part we contribute, alongside the advisers a family already trusts.
The aim is not to persuade a family towards any particular route. It is to make sure that whichever route is chosen, it is chosen with an accurate picture of what the collection is.