Original or Print
Seven things you can check with a lamp and a loupe.
Answer what you can see.
Two checks settle most cases: paint that stands up off the surface, and the absence of a printed dot pattern under magnification.
How to tell if a painting is an original or a print
Almost every picture brought to us as a possible original is a reproduction, and almost every one can be settled in two minutes with a raking light and a loupe. Paint has physical relief; printing does not. Printing has a dot structure; paint does not.
The checks above are weighted by how conclusive each one is. Raised brushwork and the absence of a dot pattern do most of the work; a signature does almost none.
The two checks that decide it
First, raking light. Hold a lamp almost flat to the surface and look across it. Real brushwork throws small shadows, ridges and the marks of a loaded brush. A print stays flat, even when it has been varnished or printed on canvas with a fake texture — the texture will repeat, and it will not follow the image.
Second, a loupe. Ten-power magnification on a light passage will show rows of dots, rosettes or a fine regular grid if the image was printed. Paint under magnification looks like pigment in a binder: irregular, granular, continuous.
Giclée prints, and why they fool people
A giclée is a high-resolution inkjet print, often on canvas, sometimes hand-varnished and occasionally given a layer of clear gel to imitate brushstrokes. They are made to be convincing at arm's length and they are convincing at arm's length. Under a loupe the ink still sits in a sprayed pattern with no pigment relief of its own, and the gel strokes rarely align with the painted marks in the image beneath.
Look at the edges too. An original on stretched canvas usually shows paint carried over the turnover edge, with tacking margins and an aged verso. A canvas print stops at a clean printed line or wraps the image itself around the sides.
What the back tells you
Turn it over. Old stretchers darken unevenly, carry hand-cut keys, tack holes and the marks of previous framing. Labels, stamps and inventory numbers accumulate. A crisp modern stretcher behind an apparently nineteenth-century image is a warning, and a printed edition number anywhere — 34/250 and the like — settles the question outright.
Questions we are asked
- How can I tell if a painting is an original or a print?
- Light it from the side and look for paint relief, then examine the surface under a loupe for a regular dot or grid pattern. Relief with no dots means paint; dots with no relief mean print.
- Can a print look like an original oil painting?
- Yes. Giclée prints on canvas, varnished and sometimes gel-textured, are convincing from a normal viewing distance. Magnification and raking light still separate them.
- Does a signature mean a painting is an original?
- No. Signatures are printed along with the image on most reproductions. A signature applied in paint, sitting physically on top of the surface, is evidence; one that is part of the image is not.
- What does an edition number mean?
- A fraction such as 34/250 means the sheet is number 34 of a limited edition of 250 prints. It confirms the work is a print, and edition size is central to what it is worth.
Authenticate a work of art
Who is allowed to speak for each artist, what the catalogues record, and what a loupe settles before either of them is needed.
Beyond the ChecklistRead the work itself
The checks tell you how it was made; the instrument tells you whose it might be, and roughly what that is worth.