PHILIPPE THOMAS — Distriart N.V. Art Share, Ostend, 1994

Two-colour offset print on security-style paper. Capital-share certificate with thirty attached dividend coupons. Dutch company statutes printed to reverse. 43.5 × 32 cm. Numbered 041.

Issued by Distriart N.V. as an artist-designed company share operating simultaneously as financial document, printed multiple and collectible object. Thomas's design enlarges a commercial barcode into the certificate's principal image, placing product identification, serial production and ownership within the same administrative surface.

Philippe Thomas established readymades belong to everyone® in New York in 1987. Structured as an agency rather than a conventional artistic identity, the project enabled purchasers to occupy the position of attributed author. The certificate extends that proposition into a financial instrument: authorship and ownership are processed through registration, numbering, signatures and transfer.

The certificate is numbered 041. Published accounts describe the Distriart designs as planned or stated in editions of 1,000 examples per artist. The numbering system appears consistent with that structure, but no primary production record has been located confirming that all 1,000 examples of the Thomas design were physically printed and circulated. It is therefore described as a numbered example from a stated or intended edition of 1,000.

The sheet is not signed by Philippe Thomas. Two signature-like marks appear beneath the corporate designation "Een Bestuurder" — "a director" — and relate to Distriart's company authorisation. It cannot be determined from the object alone whether these are handwritten signatures or printed facsimiles.

Condition: good vintage condition. General handling creases, light age toning and scattered staining, with apparent adhesive residue near the upper reverse corners. Unidentified six-digit pencil annotation to the upper verso, apparently reading "012427," likely a later inventory, collection or stock reference. All thirty dividend coupons remain present and attached.