ABOUT US

Questions?

If you have any questions about our Art Products, how to bid in our auctions, how to buy direct, how to sell or about artelino please do not hesitate to contact me.

About Us > About artelino

Two typical work places
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Who we are

artelino was established in 2001 and is a virtual auction house. The family-owned business is located in Icking south of Munich, Germany. From the beginning the auction house has specialized in Japanese art prints from the 18th century until contemporary. Two years later modern Chinese prints and recently also Chinese paintings have been added.

Recently the auction house is venturing into other groups of Asian art. Since February 2008 we offer Tibetan thangkas (Buddhist scroll paintings), all handmade traditional Tibetan carpets and unique, gold-plated, metal statues from Nepal/Tibet.

Print consignments are stored in practical boxes.
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The experience of the founders in selling Japanese prints on the internet goes back to 1997/1998 when they programmed, managed and operated Germany's first interactice art auction web site. In December of 2001 artelino started its first online auction of Japanese print. By December 2007 more than 25,000 art objects had been sold in more than 500 online auctions. The buyers and consignors are art collectors, casual art buyers, resellers, professional art dealers and artists. Since the middle of 2007 we run two to three auctions per week.

How we operate

A new consignment of Tibetan statues.
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For Japanese and Chinese art prints artelino does not keep an inventory of its own. Like a typical auction house we act as a mediator between seller and buyer and take a commission for our services. We operate in the traditional form of an auction house. Each art object must be sent to artelino. We inspect the authenticity and the condition, make professional images and describe the objects with our own critical expertise.

Also payments and shipments are part of our job. We charge the successful bidders and buyers, pack and ship the art objects and pay the consignors within very short time after auction end.

Security and privacy are paramount.

Buyers pay by credit card. Credit card data is encrypted by highest industry standards while sent over the internet. Our security standards are certified by a quarterly review for the PCI (Payment Card Industry) standard of VISA and Mastercard by src GmbH in Bonn, Germany. The encryption by SSL industry standard is certified by Thawte in Cape Town, South Africa.

But we go even one step further. After we received and verified your credit card information, we print this information on paper and delete your credit card information from our server with the exception of the last four digits and the expiration date. It is simple: data that is not stored on an electronic device cannot be hacked. Thus we achieve practically hundred percent security and privacy protection for your payment information.

We offer contents

One of our office rooms.
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artelino offers you more than just art objects. In our Reference section you find ample contents about the type of art we offer - hundreds of articles about art and biographies and querable database files of artists, signatures and more. To our knowledge there is no other online auction site in Japanese and Chinese prints that offers you contents as we do.

The same applies to our knowledge to our archive of sold Japanese and Chinese art prints. The archive does not only show excellent images and descriptions of each piece but also prices - reserves and hammered prices. This plethora of information is subject of worldwide research by dealers, museum curators, renowned auction houses and appraisers.

Steady growth since 2001

Our sales and operations have grown since 2001. At the beginning of 2008 artelino GmbH employed one full-time and 16 part-time helpers, mainly students with exceptional skills in media design, languages, art information technology, the internet and journalism. Distributed over two buildings we have 12 workplaces, a storage room, a photo studio, a room for shipments and for unpacking the incoming consignments and an external storage place for our packaging material.

What else we do

Here your objects are prepared for shipment.
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With our new products from the Himalayas - Thangkas, Statues and all-handmade traditional Tibetan carpets we would like to preserve and encourage traditions and an incredible level in artisanship and skill that has survived hundreds of years practically unchanged and uneffected by modern, industrial techniques.

With the sales of the traditional Tibetan carpets we would also like to support a nursery and an elementary school which the Nepalese owner (and personal friend of mine) of a carpet manufacture in the Kathmandu valley has maintained for years for the children of the workers.

On long term I plan to transform artelino GmbH into a foundation.

Dieter Wanczura
(owner of artelino GmbH)

Please feel encouraged to contact me.