Cal. CIV § 1738

This is the official text of Cal. CIV § 1738, part of California’s Civil Code — covers contracts, property ownership, personal rights, and other general civil obligations between private parties.

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Official statutory text

As used in this title:

(a) “Artist” means the person who creates a work of fine art or, if that person is deceased, that person’s heir, legatee, or personal representative.

(b) “Fine art” means a painting, sculpture, drawing, work of graphic art (including an etching, lithograph, offset print, silk screen, or a work of graphic art of like nature), a work of calligraphy, or a work in mixed media (including a collage, assemblage, or any combination of the foregoing art media).

(c) “Art dealer” means a person engaged in the business of selling works of fine art, other than a person exclusively engaged in the business of selling goods at public auction.

(d) “Person” means an individual, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, association or other group, however organized.

(e) “Consignment” means that no title to, estate in, or right to possession of, fine art, superior to that of the consignor shall vest in the consignee, notwithstanding the consignee’s power or authority to transfer and convey to a third person all of the right, title and interest of the consignor in and to such fine art.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.