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Chicago referencing: Referencing particular types of material

Referencing: creating footnotes and bibliographies in the Chicago style,

 

Contents of this page

artnet database entries

Artprice database entries

ArtTactic reports

Business of fashion articles

Exhibition catalogues

Interviews and transcripts

Lectures

Legal material

One source quoted in another

Sales catalogues

Sources in non-Western scripts

Wall text from galleries, and similar material

 

artnet database entries

Notes

artnet, data for Faith Ringgold.

artnet, 'Price Database Fine Art and Design.'

  • use the second example above if citing one of the artnet databases as a whole

 

Bibliography

artnet. Data for Faith Ringgold. Accessed 22 October 2021. https://www.artnet.com/.

artnet. Data for Faith Ringgold, Listen to the Trees.  Accessed 22 October 2021. https://www.artnet.com/.

  • use the above format when citing a record for a specific artwork

artnet. 'Price Database Fine Art and  and Design.' Accessed 22 October 2021. https://www.artnet.com/.

artnet 'Price Database Decorative Art.' Accessed various dates June-August 2021.  https://www.artnet.com/.

  • the general URL shown above can be given for all artnet database citations

 

Artprice database entries

Note

Artprice, data for Edmonia Lewis.

Bibliography entry

Artprice. Data for Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907). Accessed 28 January 2022. http://www.artprice.com/.

  • use the above format both for the landing page for an artist, and their decision support tools page
  • the general URL shown above can be given for all data retrieved from the Artprice database
  • when citing a graph or chart from Artprice, it will often be preferable to reproduce the graph as an illustration.  Citation information will then appear in the illustration caption, rather than as a footnote and bibliography entry

 

Artprice - the database as a whole

Note

Artprice.

  • the above is all that is needed if citing the Artprice database as a whole

Bibliography entry

Artprice. Accessed 28 January 2022. http://www.artprice.com/.

 

ArtTactic reports

Note

ArtTactic, Impressionist & Modern Art, 12.

  • when citing multiple ArtTactic reports with similar titles, remember that in order to differentiate between them you may need to give fairly full titles in your footnotes

Bibliography

ArtTactic. Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sales in London: June 2018. https://arttactic.com/.

  • treat the date given on the cover as part of the title, as in the example above, even if this date is not adjacent to the title and does not look like part of the title. The date may be  a month, season or year
  • treat ArtTactic as the author, unless an individual author is mentioned on the cover or first page.  There is no need to mention an analyst or researcher listed on the report's final page
  • the general URL shown above can be given for all ArtTactic reports.

 

Business of fashion articles

Note

Swithinbank, 'Richard Mille and Ferrari.'

Bibliography

Swithinbank, Robin. 'Richard Mille and Ferrari Bucked Luxury's Slowdown. Now They’re Releasing a $1.5 Million Watch.' Business of Fashion. 21 March 2025. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/richard-mille-and-ferrari-bucked-luxurys-slowdown-now-theyre-releasing-a-15-million-watch.

 

Exhibition catalogues

Note

Treves, Beyond Caravaggio, 14.

Bibliography

Treves, Letizia. Beyond Caravaggio. With contributions by Aidan Weston-Lewis, Gabriele Finaldi, Christian Tico Seifert, Adriaan E. Waiboer, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper and Marjorie E. Wiseman. National Gallery Company in association with National Gallery of Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland, 2016. Distributed by Yale University Press. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title, presented at the National Gallery, London, 12 October 2016-15 January 2017, the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 11 February-14 May 2017 and the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, 17 June-24 September 2017.

If there are more than two venues, the bibliography entry may be shortened to:

Treves, Letizia. Beyond Caravaggio. With contributions by Aidan Weston-Lewis, Gabriele Finaldi, Christian Tico Seifert, Adriaan E. Waiboer, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper and Marjorie E. Wiseman. National Gallery Company in association with National Gallery of Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland, 2016. Distributed by Yale University Press. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title, presented at the National Gallery, London, 12 October 2016-15 January 2017, and two other venues.

It is also permissible to give only an even shorter bibliography entry, as follows:

Treves, Letizia. Beyond Caravaggio. National Gallery Company in association with National Gallery of Ireland and National Galleries of Scotland, 2016. Distributed by Yale University Press. Exhibition catalogue.

The two shorter options may be particularly useful when citing a particular essay in a catalogue with essays by many authors, to avoid a very long bibliography entry.

 

Interviews and transcripts

For some MA programmes, transcripts of any interviews you have conducted and have cited in your dissertation must be included as appendices.  For other MA programmes, transcripts are optional. Ensure you are aware of the rules for your programme.

When transcripts are included, each should be in a separate appendix, except in the case of very short interviews, which may be grouped together in a single appendix. Appendices should be designated by either Arabic numerals or letters.

When referring to an interview transcript that is included in your dissertation, you do not need to include a footnote or bibliography entry. Simply add a suitable parenthetical note in your text, such as (see Appendix 2) or (see page 83, below).

If referring to an interview you have conducted, but where a transcript is not included in your dissertation, see this guidance:

 

Lectures

Note

Hacking, 'Photography from China.'

Bibliography

Hacking, Juliet. 'Photography from China.'  Lecture delivered at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, 21 February 2022.

or, in the case of a lecture delivered by Zoom:

Hacking, Juliet. 'Photography from China.'  Lecture delivered at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, 21 February 2022. Via Zoom.

 

Legal material

The Chicago Manual does not provide full guidelines for legal documents such as legislation or the official records of court cases. Instead it advises use of specialised legal citation guides.  SIA does not require the use of such guides.  You can improvise your own common-sense format for footnotes and bibliography entries, making sure you include key information such as name of legislation or court case, date and, if available, URL.

 

One source quoted in another

What do you do if you want to use a quotation from one author that you have found in a later work by another author? 

Firstly, try to locate the original text.  The later author may have taken the quotation out of context or even made an error in transcribing it.  You can ask the library if you need help finding the original.

Occasionally, however, it is not possible to access the original.  In this case you should only list the later source, i.e.  you have been able to consult, in your bibliography.

Because the earlier source does not appear in your bibliography, you need to create a fuller footnote than usual, as in this example:

 

Louis Zukofsky, 'Sincerity and Objectification,' Poetry 37 (February 1931): 269, quoted in Costello, Marianne Moore, 78.

 

In this case, the original source is a journal article.  More examples of full footnotes, for books, journal articles and other common kinds of source, are in the Chicago Manual's sample citations section.

 

Sales catalogues 

 

 

When referring to a specific lot, there is no need to give page numbers.  

When a sale takes place over multiple days, give the date as follows: 8-9 November 2004. 

If in an assignment you cite more than one sale with the same name, at the same auction house, you will need to include the sale date in the note. 

 

Example: entire auction catalogue 

Note 

Sotheby’s, Surrealist Art. 

Bibliography entry 

Sotheby’s. Surrealist Art Evening Sale: Auction in London, 26 February 2019. 

  • count as the title all text on the title page up to and including the sale date
  • if the location of the auction does not appear in the title, add it a separate section after the title

 

Example: specific lot in sales catalogue 

Note 

Sotheby’s, Surrealist Art, lot 6. 

Bibliography entry (no need to give lot number(s)) 

Sotheby’s. Surrealist Art Evening Sale: Auction in London, 26 February 2019. 

  • if the location of the auction does not appear in the title, add it a separate section after the title

 

Example: specific lot on auction house website

Note

Sotheby's, 'Contemporary Curated,' lot 4.

Bibliography entry 

Sotheby's. 'Contemporary Curated: Live Auction 2 October 2020, 3:00PM BST, New York.'  https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/contemporary-curated-3.

  • there is no need to include lot number(s) in your bibliography, unlike your footnotes
  • if citing only one lot, give the URL for that lot; otherwise, give the URL for the sale as a whole, as in the example above

 

Example: essay by named author in sales catalogue 

Note 

 Minter, 'John Butler Yeats,' 15. 

Bibliography entry 

Minter, Charlie. 'John Butler Yeats: The Artist.' In Yeats: The Family Collection: Auction in London, 27 September 2017, by Sotheby’s. 

  • if the location of the auction does not appear in the title, add it a separate section after the title

 

Longer notes: for use in assignments which have no bibliography 

Sotheby’s, Surrealist Art Evening Sale: Auction in London, 26 February 2019. 

Sotheby’s, Surrealist Art Evening Sale: Auction in London, 26 February 2019, lot 5. 

Sotheby's, 'Contemporary Curated: Live Auction 2 October 2020, 3:00PM BST, New York,'  lot 4, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/contemporary-curated-3/barkley-l-hendricks-latin-from-manhattan-the-bronx.

Charlie Minter, 'John Butler Yeats: The Artist,' in Yeats: The Family Collection: Auction in London, 27 September 2017, by Sotheby’s, 14. 

  • in a full footnote, if the sale location is not given in the title, include it as an extra element, in plain text and round brackets immediately after the title

 

Sources in non-Western scripts

This guidance applies to sources written in  Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and many other languages.

In the footnote:

  • give the author's name in the Western alphabet
  • give the title, or a shortened version of the title, in its own language but in the Western alphabet

In the bibliography:

  • give the author's name only in the Western alphabet
  • give the title first in its own language but in the Western alphabet.  Follow this with the title in the original script. Finally add a translation of the title in English. Put this translation in square brackets without either italics or quotation marks
  • give other details, such as the name of the publisher, only once and in the Western alphabet
  • if there is more than way of transliterating the script into the Western alphabet, use any well-known system

Note

Meng, Xinjiang, 27.

Bibliography entry

Meng, Fanren.  Xinjiang gudai diaosu jiyi  新疆古代雕塑輯佚  [Ancient sculptural remains from Xinjiang]. Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1987.

 

Wall text from galleries, and similar material

It is not compulsory to create a footnote: it may be easier to give the relevant information in the body of your assignment.  However, if it will be tidier, you can move this information into a footnote.  If you do so, the footnote does not have to be formatted in any particular way. In either case, if the text has a named author, mention them.

There is usually no need to create a bibliography entry.