History of Photography 

Catalogues Raisonnés
"All the works of an artist".  A scholar or a group of scholars documents every work of an artist's career.  Each work is pictured, with scholarly opinions, provenance (where the work has been), and literature.  The first place to start when researching an artist or individual work. Not all artists have catalogues raisonnés.

Edgar Degas, photographer / Malcolm Daniel ; with essays by Eugenia Parry, Theodore Reff. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Distributed by H.N. Abrams, [1998] 

Permanent Holdings Catalogs (of museums)

Detailed catalogs of a period or genre of art in a particular museum.  Like a catalogue raisonné, it will contain a collection of scholar's opinion on an object, conservation reports, provenance and literature (written about it).  If you know of the location of a work of art, check for permanent holdings catalogs.

Alfred Stieglitz : the key set : the Alfred Stieglitz collection of photographs / Sarah Greenough. Reff.  Washington, D.C. : National Gallery of Art ; New York : Harry N. Abrams, 2002.