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Consignment or loan agreement. What's the difference and what are the rules (templates included)?




There are 2 different types of loan forms. A commercial one and a non-commercial one.

If it's commercial, you can speak of a CONSIGNMENT. Otherwise, you can use the term LOAN AGREEMENT.


To get started you can download our consignment & loan agreement templates as examples.



What should be in your document?

  1. Start with mentioning the type of document: CONSIGNMENT or LOAN AGREEMENT.

  2. Secondly, you have to mention both parties involved and their contact details.

CONSIGNOR (or LENDER if not commercial) Your business name (if applicable) Your first & last name Your address, phone, email CONSIGNEE (or BORROWER if not commercial) Consignee/borrower’s business name (if applicable) Consignee/borrower’s first & last name Consignee/borrower’s address, phone, email

3. Start & end date of the consignment/loan.

Please note that the loan period should be longer than the actual exhibition period as you also need to take into account the transport, set-up, and dismantling time. You can also mention the information about the exhibition such as venue, title, and dates. This is not absolutely required, but it’s better to be complete. Make sure that the artwork(s) return before the end of the loan date. If this isn't possible the loan date should be extended and the documents should be renewed.

4. Details of the ARTWORKS involved: Include detailed information about the artwork(s) you’ll be lending. Such as an image, title, date, material, size, and edition amount (e.g. unique or 3+2AP). Also specify the specific edition on loan (if applicable) For example edition in loan: 2. Other important information is the retail price (only for consignment), insurance value (VAT Excl.), and production costs (if applicable). You can specify your courtesy per artwork in the general conditions. The same is true for the financial split. We’ll go deeper into the specifics of this in a later blogpost. If you send the information in a separate list, make sure this is specified on your document (see the example in our template).

5. CONDITIONS: Please check the specific blog we've written on this topic here.

6 . At the end of your document you should include the name, date, and signature of both parties involved. For example like this: NAME AND SURNAME OF THE CONSIGNOR (or LENDER if not commercial) DATE AND SIGNATURE NAME AND SURNAME OF THE CONSIGNEE (or BORROWER if not commercial) DATE AND SIGNATURE

7. And last but not least: don't forget to number and sign all pages.


Here are some examples of what such a document might look like:



Please note that amy and its team take no responsibility for any legal disputes or other that might arise from using the information in this blog. It serves purely as an example and should not be interpreted as any sort of legal advise.

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