IS IT A PRINT OR
AN ORIGINAL WORK?:
SOME TIPS BEFORE TO ASK AN ART APPRAISAL.
1) The surface.
If someone believes to be in possession of
an authentic painting, the first step is to
rub the surface of the work with one’s
fingers. If the surface has some thickness
with rugged paint relief, that one is almost
sure to be in the presence of a painting.
There are however printing techniques,
designed at the start of the 20th Century in
Germany (Oleo druck), enabling to reproduce
a painting with such relieves but the canvas
supporting the work would often look new.
All the more there would be no trace of
brush on these reproductions of very little
value. However, new techniques have been
designed in the 1950’s by which a
reproduction would show a thick surface with
brushstrokes. These reproductions are often
produced with the help of a photography on
which paint would have been added by hand or
mechanical wise.
2) Regarding a watercolor, the surface of
the paper should have some grain and not be
glossy and flat. In addition, the best way
to determine whether the work is a
watercolor or gouache is to wet the tip of a
small cotton ball and to apply it gently on
a patch of color. Some color would then
appear on that tip, suggesting that it is a
genuine work.
3) Still, some reproductions are heightened
with watercolor or gouache. So it seems
essential to use a magnifying glass to
detect crayon lines or a sketch underneath
the watercolor. If regular dots are seen,
then the work might simply be a print
heightened with colors.
4) If there is a printed copyright mention
on the lower left or right side of the work,
then this is surely a print. If there is a
signature in crayon or watercolor, then the
work would probably be genuine.
5) Lithography’s and prints.
Usually a screen made of dots can be seen
through a magnifying glass with grain traces
like sand on the surface. In addition, very
small spots of ink or smudges can be
detected on the surface whereas some lines
are so thin that no stroke of a pen could
make them. Many prints bear the mark of the
press all along their edges and seem to form
a hollow surface like a kind of intaglio
engraving. Not all engravings, like wood
cuts and etchings, have a hollow surface but
one can see clearly printed lines on the
surface or even feel them when caressing an
etching. There have been also prints
heightened with watercolors which were quite
deceiving and really looking like hand-made
works where printed dots could not be
detected. Offset and serigraphic prints are
usually totally flat. Serigraphic works by
Andy Warhol were in fact photomechanical
processes whereby an image was reproduced in
a limited edition on a silk screen with the
addition of acrylic colors of different
tones which may look like paintings in the
eyes of non-professionals.
6) Sheets of paper could be thick or thin
with different grains. Many forgers have
used old sheets to produce works so as to
make believe they had been made during
previous centuries.
7) The signature of a painter is not a
guarantee that the work being examined was
produced by him. Many forged signatures have
been added on oil works, drawings or
watercolors. The same objection applies for
prints. For example, the printed signature
of Salvador Dali was often added on white
sheets of paper even before they went to the
lithographer’s studio or worse, such
signature or even a forged one, was added to
lithographs. There were also some so-called
posthumous signatures added on certain
prints (Magritte for example, by his wife)
by the heirs of many artists.
8) Techniques :
There have been different working techniques
: oil, tempera (a medium containing egg),
acrylic mixtures, watercolors, gouache,
crayon, black or red chalk, plumbago,
monotypes and prints of all kinds used by
artists.
9) Reproductions or prints usually carry
little value though some genuine engravings
produced by famous artists, such as Dürer,
Cranach, Altdorfer, Rembrandt, Goya,
Piranese, Daumier, Degas, Géricault,
Toulouse-lautrec, Nolde, Munch, Picasso,
Matisse, Renoir, Bonnard or Morandi could
reach tremendous prices.
10) It is of course very important to know
if you have an original or a reproduction
before to ask an art appraisal
