Painting Identifier App
The likely artist, title, period and movement — a pocket guide for a museum wall or an attic.
Lovenhall Art IdentifierName a painting, and place it.
Point the camera at a painting and the instrument surfaces the likely artist, title, period and movement — a pocket guide for a museum wall, an estate sale, or something found in an attic.
Paintings & prints
Three moves, and you have a figure
You photograph it. The instrument reads it. You know where you stand.
You photograph it
One photograph. Nothing to fill in, nothing to send away.
It reads what it sees
The reading happens there and then, on the phone.
You have a figure to work from
A range, in seconds — enough to know where you stand.
What a photograph can and cannot settle
Point the camera at a picture and the Art Identifier surfaces the likely artist, title, period and movement, with the work's context in plain language. It is built for the three moments people actually meet paintings in: standing in front of a museum label you cannot read, at an estate sale with four minutes to decide, and holding something that came out of a relative's loft.
Those three moments are not equally easy, and the difference matters more here than for any other instrument in the case.
| What you are holding | How the instrument does | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A famous work, or a print of one | Strong. Named quickly, with period and movement. | The picture is catalogued and reproduced thousands of times over. |
| A listed artist's typical subject | Good. Often the right hand, or the right circle. | Enough published comparables exist to match a style against. |
| An unsigned picture by an unrecorded painter | Weak, and honest about it — style and period rather than a name. | There is nothing published to match it to. No app can invent a record. |
| Original or reproduction | Clues only, from surface and edges. | It is a physical question. A loupe answers it in seconds. |
Most pictures people ask about fall in the third row. That is where the instrument gives you a period and a direction rather than a name — which is still a great deal more than you had.
A name is a claim, and the app does not make it
There is a real difference between recognition and attribution. Recognition says: this looks like Monet's handling, this subject, this decade. Attribution says: Monet painted this, and I will stake a valuation on it. The first can come from an image. The second comes from connoisseurship, materials analysis, provenance and a catalogue raisonné, and it is the single largest lever on what a painting is worth.
So read the name the instrument offers as the beginning of a search, not the end of one. If it points somewhere serious, the next step is a specialist in that artist — not a higher-resolution photograph.
Original or print is settled by the surface, not the image
The instrument will flag what it can see: a suspiciously flat surface, a plate edge, a dot pattern coarse enough to survive the camera. But a good giclée on canvas photographs exactly like a painting, and this is the question that changes the figure most.
Do it yourself in two minutes. Under a ten-times loupe, a printed reproduction dissolves into a regular grid or rosette of dots; an original shows continuous, irregular brushwork and often raised paint you can catch in raking light. Then look at the edge of the canvas, where a print's image usually stops dead.
Photograph the back as well as the front
Every experienced person turns a picture over first. The verso carries gallery labels, exhibition stickers, framer's marks, stretcher stamps, inventory numbers and old auction lot tags — the written history that makes a name defensible.
- Square on to the surface, no angle, so the composition is not distorted.
- No flash: varnish throws it straight back and erases a third of the picture.
- Indirect daylight, and one extra shot raking across the surface for texture.
- Close frames of the signature, any monogram, and the whole reverse.
- Keep the frame in one shot — frames date pictures surprisingly well.
Where the instrument ends
It ends before the word genuine. The house examines nothing, authenticates nothing and issues no certificates, and every range it gives is indicative. For a figure an insurer or a buyer will act on you want an independent appraiser; for a name you want a specialist in that artist, and the auction houses will look at photographs without charge because they are hoping to sell it.
Frequently asked
Is there an app that can identify a painting?
Yes — the Lovenhall Art Identifier reads a photograph and returns the likely artist, title, period and movement with the work's context. It is strongest on catalogued works and honest about unrecorded ones, where it gives a period and a direction rather than a name.
Can an app tell me who painted a picture?
It can suggest a hand and a circle, which is where a search starts. It cannot attribute a work — that is argued from the handling of paint, the materials, the documentation and expert opinion, and it is what decides most of a painting's value.
Can an app tell if a painting is an original or a print?
Only partly. It flags what is visible, but a giclée on canvas photographs like a painting. Check it yourself with a 10× loupe: prints show a regular pattern of dots, originals show continuous brushwork and raised paint.
How do I find out what a painting is worth?
Establish the artist first, because authorship sets most of the figure. Then compare recent auction results for the same artist, period and size — asking prices are not evidence. The free Painting Value Calculator on this site gives an indicative range from medium, size, condition and the artist's standing.
Is the Art Identifier free?
It is free to try on iPhone and iPad. Everything it returns is indicative, and the house issues no certificates of authenticity.
The free tools and notes that go with it
A Lovenhall instrument reads a photograph and returns an estimate. Nobody at the Registry examines the piece, and no professional opinion is given. It is not a certificate of authenticity, an appraisal, a gemmological report, or a guarantee of value; any figure is indicative only, and independent verification is always advised before a purchase or sale.
№ II · ArtRead the piece itself
A page takes you as far as words can. Photograph the piece with the instrument and start from a figure — an estimate, which is where you begin and never where you finish.