About Unknown Artist

"Unknown people people by culture" comprise appellations referring to generic culture or nationality designations that are typically used in cataloging to record unidentified creators with unestablished oeuvres, such as "unknown Mayan" or simply "Mayan." (The terms in this facet may also be used for anonymous people other than artists.) The appellation for creation in this context refers to the culture in which the work was created, not necessarily to the nationality or culture of the individual artist (who is by definition unknown). The generic "unknown" designation does not refer to one identified, if anonymous, individual; but instead the same heading refers to any of hundreds of anonymous, unidentified artistic personalities. Although ULAN includes designations for these unknown artists, in this case each ULAN record does not represent a single individual. "Anonymous" creators, who according to CCO and CDWA represent one person and have established oeuvres and estimated life dates, are recorded with pseudonyms or other appellations (e.g., Boucicaut Master) in the ULAN Person facet. Note that some repositories call "unknown" artists "anonymous"; thus a variant name for unknown artists in ULAN include the word "anonymous," even though "anonymous" is defined differently in ULAN and related standards (CCO, CDWA)....