Is This Painting Worth Anything?
The honest answer, most of the time, is not very much in money. That is not the same thing as worthless, and the difference between those two is the part people get wrong.
Here is how to actually find out, in the order I would do it.
First, is it an original or a print?
This one question settles most of the value before you get to anything else. An original by somebody nobody has heard of is usually worth more than a print by somebody famous.
Take it to a window and look across the surface at a low angle rather than straight on. An original has topography. You will see ridges, brush marks, knife strokes, places where the paint stands up off the surface and catches the light differently. A print is flat, and it stays flat no matter what angle you look from.
If you have a magnifier or a phone camera that zooms hard, look closely at a mid tone area. Many printed images resolve into a regular pattern of dots. Paint does not do that.
Then turn it over
The back of a painting usually tells you more than the front, and almost nobody looks.
You are looking for gallery labels, exhibition stickers, a framer's stamp, a title or a date written in pencil on the stretcher, an old price, a name and address. Any one of those turns an anonymous object into something you can research.
Photograph all of it before anything else happens, including the labels, the writing, and the frame. If the piece later goes to an appraiser or a family member three states away, those photographs are the whole conversation.
The signature is the least reliable part
People go straight to the signature, and it is the thing most easily faked, most often misread, and least useful on its own.
A name you can actually read is worth typing into a search along with the words painting and sold. If nothing comes back, that is information too. A signature you cannot read is not a mystery you need to solve at your kitchen table, and it is rarely the reason a piece turns out to be valuable.
What actually sets the number
Four things, roughly in this order.
Who made it, and whether there is any record of their work selling. Provenance, meaning where the piece has been and who owned it and whether any of that is documented. Condition, which includes tears, flaking, water damage, and anything a previous owner did with good intentions. And whether anybody currently wants that kind of work, which moves around more than people expect.
You will notice that none of those four is how much you like it. That is the honest part of this and I would rather say it plainly.
When to get a real appraisal
Four situations genuinely call for one: insuring something above whatever your policy covers without a schedule, settling an estate, dividing things among family where the split needs to be fair, and selling something you believe is significant.
When you look for an appraiser, find someone accredited who specializes in fine art, and check how they charge. You want a flat fee or an hourly rate. Walk away from anyone charging a percentage of the value they assign, because that gives them a reason to make the number bigger. Ask for a written report rather than a verbal opinion.
One more thing worth knowing. An appraisal tells you replacement or fair market value. It is not what a dealer will hand you in cash, and those two numbers are often very far apart.
And the part that is not about money
A piece can be worth almost nothing at auction and still be the right thing to keep, and I would never talk anybody out of that.
The reverse is also true. Something can appraise well and still be a painting you have never once enjoyed looking at, and you are allowed to let that one go.
If what you have is a piece of mine and you need documentation for insurance or an estate, write to me and I will help you sort it out. And if you are at the beginning of collecting rather than the end, there is more in the Artist Insights archive on how buying actually works.
Warmly,
Dani
