How to identify a painting

Look in all four corners and along the lower edge, then check for a monogram, cyrillic or East Asian seal, or an inscribed date. Photograph it close up under angled light so the paint texture separates the letters from the surface. Compare the shapes against auction catalogues and signature dictionaries rather than trusting your first reading — L and S, or 1 and 7, are misread constantly.

The reverse often tells you more than the front. Gallery and framer labels, exhibition stickers, stencilled inventory numbers, customs marks and old auction lot tags all date and locate a work. A machine-cut stretcher with keys suggests late 19th century or later; hand-planed panels and hand-forged nails point much earlier.

Canvas, wood panel, copper, board and paper each belong to particular periods and places. Oil, tempera, acrylic and gouache look different up close: acrylic sits in flat plastic-looking films and cannot predate the 1950s, while aged oil develops a fine craquelure network. A print masquerading as a painting shows a regular dot or plate pattern under magnification.

Ask what the picture is doing. Loose broken colour and outdoor light suggest Impressionism; flattened planes and bold non-natural colour suggest Post-Impressionism or Fauvism; tight glazes, dark grounds and religious subjects point to earlier academic or Baroque traditions. Clothing, architecture, transport and hairstyles in the scene are excellent date markers.

Once you have a candidate name, period or subject, search auction result databases, museum collection catalogues and artist listings. A matching size, title and provenance chain is far stronger evidence than a visual resemblance alone.

If you do not know where to begin, photograph the painting in even daylight, without glare or the frame cropping the edges, and run it through an AI identifier. Canvas Curator returns the likely title and artist, the period and movement, medium and technique, the dominant palette and the historical context — enough to know which specialist or archive to approach next.

Shoot straight on in indirect daylight, remove glass or glazing if you safely can, fill the frame with the painting itself, and take extra close-ups of the signature and the reverse. Even lighting and sharp focus improve both AI results and expert opinions.