How to tell if a painting is original or a print

A canvas print on the wall can look just like a painting from across the room. Up close, the surface, the edges and the back of the frame tell the story in a few minutes. You need a bright light, a 10x jeweller’s loupe or a phone camera on zoom, and a clean table.

Look at the surface first

Hold a lamp or a phone torch low and to one side, almost flat to the picture. This raking light throws every ridge into shadow.

Signs of an original painting

• Brushstrokes you can feel and see: ridges, peaks of thick paint (impasto), bristle marks inside a stroke, and strokes that go in different directions.
• Uneven edges where colours meet. One colour laps over another, and you can see which went on first.
• Paint sitting on the canvas weave. In thin areas the weave shows through; in thick areas it disappears.
• Cracks (craquelure) in older oils that run through the paint layer itself, in a random web.
• Pencil or charcoal underdrawing showing through thin paint or at the edges, common in watercolours.

Signs of a print

• A dot pattern under the loupe. Offset lithographs and posters show a regular grid of small round dots (a rosette pattern). Giclees show a very fine, even scatter of dots with no structure.
• No texture at all, or texture that doesn’t match the picture. Some canvas prints have a stamped “brushstroke” texture that runs across the image without following the shapes.
• A clear, even gloss over everything, as if the whole picture were coated at once.
• Texture only on highlights. That points to a hand-embellished print: a few real strokes added over a printed image.
• Perfectly sharp, identical edges on every shape, which brushes rarely give.

Check the edges and the back

Take the picture off the wall and turn it over.

• Side edges of the canvas. An original’s paint often runs onto the sides, ends raggedly, or stops where the artist stopped. A canvas print often has a mirrored or solid-colour edge, or the image wraps around in a perfectly even band.
• The canvas and stretcher. Old hand-cut canvas, tacks instead of staples, keyed wooden stretchers with small wedges in the corners, and darkened, dusty wood suggest age. Bright white canvas with even staples suggests a modern piece, which can still be an original, but check the front closely.
• Labels and stamps. Gallery and framer labels, exhibition stickers, auction lot numbers and canvas makers’ stamps (for example Winsor & Newton or Lefranc) help with dating and provenance. A printer’s or publisher’s label, or the words “giclee”, “lithograph” or “reproduction”, answers the question.
• Numbers and pencil notes. “45/200” or “AP” in pencil on the front or back means a limited edition print. A title, a date or an address in the artist’s hand can support an original.

Read the signature

Look at the signature under the loupe. A printed signature breaks into dots like the rest of the image and sits under any varnish. A painted signature sits on top of the paint, in the same paint as the picture, and usually shows a raised edge in raking light. A signature in different, fresher paint than the rest of the picture is a warning sign worth an expert look.

When it is an original, what next

A real paint surface tells you someone painted it, not who painted it. Many originals are pleasant decorative pieces by unknown or amateur artists, and many “old masters” at house sales are later copies. Value depends on the artist, the condition, the subject and the provenance.

• Search the signature in auction records (many auction sites show past sold prices for free) and note size, date and medium.
• Photograph the front, the signature, the back and every label before you clean or reframe anything.
• For a recognised name or a price above a few hundred dollars, ask an auction house specialist or a certified appraiser. Don’t clean, varnish or restore a painting yourself first.

You can also photograph the front, the signature and the back and let Gavel identify it. Gavel reads the labels and marks as part of its identification, and Gavel Pro looks up what similar works sold for, with its sources. Treat it as a strong first opinion and confirm a valuable piece with a specialist.

More on spotting what you have: how to tell if an antique is valuable and how to identify antique furniture.