How can I tell if a painting is an original without a magnifying glass?

Use raking light: shine a light from one side across the surface. Raised brushstrokes that follow the image point to an original, while a perfectly flat surface or strokes that ignore the shapes point to a print.

Does a signature mean a painting is valuable?

No. Most amateur and decorative paintings are signed. Value depends on whether the signature belongs to an artist with an auction record, and on whether it is an original.

Is a numbered print worth money?

A print hand-signed in pencil and numbered by a known artist can be worth hundreds to thousands. A numbered reproduction from a decorative publisher, or a giclee of a minor artist's work, usually sells for much less than its original price.

Where can I get a painting appraised?

An auction house paintings specialist is the fastest route to a market estimate, often from photos. For insurance or tax purposes, use an accredited appraiser who charges a fee rather than a percentage of value.

Should I remove a painting from its frame?

Only carefully, and only if the frame opens easily. Photograph the back first, keep every label attached, and leave old paper backings for a specialist to open.

Is This Painting Worth Anything? Original or Print

How to tell if a painting is an original or a print, what signatures and labels on the back mean, and what most inherited paintings and prints sell for.

Most paintings that come out of attics and estates are decorative: prints, framed reproductions, or original paintings by amateur and unknown artists. These usually sell for roughly $20-200. A painting becomes valuable when it can be tied to a known artist with an auction record, and that depends on three things you can check at home: whether it is an original or a print, whose signature is on it, and what is written or stuck on the back.

Start with the surface and the back, not the signature. A print with a famous name on it is still a print, and an unsigned original with a gallery label on the stretcher can be worth far more than a signed decorative piece.

Original or print: the surface tells you

Take the picture out of direct light, hold a phone flashlight or a desk lamp low at one side, and look across the surface. This is called raking light, and it shows texture that straight-on lighting hides.

Signs of an original painting

Raised brushstrokes (impasto) that follow the shapes in the image: a stroke curves with a petal, thickens on a highlight, stops at an edge.
Uneven paint edges where one color overlaps another.
Canvas weave showing through thin paint in some areas but not in others.
Paint continuing over the tacking edges at the sides of the stretcher.
Pencil underdrawing visible in thin watercolors.

Signs of a print

A regular pattern of tiny colored dots under a magnifying glass or a zoomed phone camera. This rosette pattern is offset printing, and it shows even in flat areas of a single color.
A perfectly flat surface with no texture at all.
Paper or canvas texture that is uniform across the whole image.
Brushstrokes that do not follow the image. Textured reproductions are prints on canvas with clear gel strokes brushed on top; look closely and the dot pattern sits under strokes that ignore the edges of shapes.

Original prints are a separate category

Not every print is a reproduction. Etchings, lithographs, woodcuts and screenprints made by the artist are original prints:

Etchings and engravings show a plate mark: a pressed, bevelled rectangle in the paper around the image.
Original lithographs and screenprints have irregular crayon texture or flat layers of ink, with no regular dot grid.
A pencil signature in the margin with an edition number such as 45/200, A.P. or H.C. means the artist signed that sheet.
A signature printed inside the image ("signed in the plate") is part of the print and adds little.

Giclee prints are high-quality inkjet reproductions. Some are signed and numbered, but they are copies of an original and are valued as such.

Reading the signature

Transcribe the signature letter by letter, exactly as it appears. Then search that name with "artist" and "auction" to see if there is a sales record.

A few cautions:

An illegible scrawl should not be matched to a famous name because one or two letters fit.
On an original, the signature should sit in the paint layer, in the same paint and under the same varnish as the rest of the picture. A signature that looks crisper or newer than the surface around it is worth noting.
Many listed artists share surnames with amateurs. A first initial, a date and a location next to the name help narrow it down.
Famous names (Picasso, Dali, Chagall, Miro, Monet) appear on huge numbers of reproductions and posters.

What the back of the painting tells you

The back is where the evidence lives. Photograph the whole back and every label on it:

Gallery labels with an address and a stock number.
Exhibition labels from a museum, art society or salon.
Auction house stickers, lot numbers and chalk or stencilled inventory marks.
Framer's labels, which date the framing and sometimes the purchase.
Handwritten titles, names and dates on the stretcher or the canvas.
Stretcher and canvas age: hand-cut wooden stretchers with wedge keys and darkened canvas suggest age; staples, bright canvas and machine-cut bars suggest the late 20th century.

This paper trail is called provenance, and it can change an estimate more than anything on the front.

Decorative art, sofa art and hotel prints

A large share of framed art in homes was made to decorate a room:

Furniture-store and department-store art: framed prints and canvas reproductions sold with sofas and dining sets.
Hotel prints: produced in large runs for hotel chains and later sold off in liquidations. They often carry a printed label from a contract art supplier.
Factory-painted originals: real oil paintings, hand-painted in studios that produce thousands of landscapes, still lifes and street scenes a year. They are originals in the literal sense, but sell like decor.
Thomas Kinkade and similar publisher editions: canvas reproductions with added highlights, often with a numbered card. They usually resell for $30-300 regardless of the card.

There is nothing wrong with owning these. They are simply priced as decoration, and a buyer pays for the frame and the look.

What makes a painting valuable

Value is mostly about attribution, then condition, then provenance:

Attribution: a painting by a known, documented artist with an auction history. "Attributed to" or "in the style of" is worth a fraction of a signed, documented work.
Subject and quality: within one artist's work, some subjects sell far better than others.
Condition: tears, flaking paint, heavy overpaint and relining reduce value. Fine age cracking (craquelure) on an old oil is normal and not damage.
Provenance: labels, receipts, letters and exhibition history.
Medium: oil on canvas usually sells above watercolor or drawing by the same artist, with exceptions.

Value tiers

What it is	Approximate value
Unsigned decorative print or framed poster	$5-30
Textured canvas reproduction	$10-50
Kinkade-style publisher edition	$30-300
Factory-painted or amateur original oil	$20-200
Print signed in the plate by a famous artist	$20-300
Hand-signed, numbered print by a known artist	$200-3,000
Original by a listed regional artist	$300-5,000
Original by a nationally known artist with auction record	$5,000 and up

The frame can matter too. A carved, gilded 19th century frame can be worth more than the painting inside it, so do not throw one away.

What to photograph

The photos that settle most cases:

The whole painting straight on, out of the frame glass if possible, since glass hides texture.
A raking-light close-up showing the surface.
A sharp close-up of the signature.
A zoomed shot of a flat color area to show whether there is a dot pattern.
The entire back, plus every label, stamp and inscription.
Measurements of the image and the frame.

Who settles it

If the signature belongs to a listed artist, or the back shows gallery and exhibition labels, take the next step with a specialist:

An auction house paintings department will look at photos and give an auction estimate at no charge in most cases, and they sell what they estimate.
An accredited appraiser writes a formal appraisal for insurance, estate or donation purposes, for a fee.
Artist foundations and catalogue raisonne committees decide authorship for important names.

Do not clean, varnish or retouch a painting before it is seen. Conservation is a specialist job, and amateur cleaning is one of the most common ways value is lost. For signed limited editions, the same logic as first edition books applies: edition size and the artist's own signature drive the price. If your painting came with silver or other family pieces, our guide to sterling versus plate covers the next box.