Free art and painting valuation
What your painting, print or picture is likely to achieve if it were sold, and where it would do best. No charge, and no obligation to proceed.
We cover paintings, prints, photographs and works on paper — Old Masters, Impressionist, Modernist, Contemporary and Post-War, and street art, including Banksy.
How the figure is arrived at
Comparable results
What closely similar works have actually made, drawn from a specialist art price database rather than from asking prices. A gallery's price and a saleroom's result are different numbers, and only one of them tells you what a buyer was willing to pay on the day.
Condition
Judged against what the work should look like for its age and medium, not against perfection. Restoration, fading, damage from earlier framing and trimming all read through to the estimate, and a condition issue found late in a consignment costs more than one found early.
Edition and format
For prints and multiples: which edition, what size, whether it is a numbered impression or a proof, and whether it is signed. These distinctions separate markets that look identical from the outside.
Provenance and paperwork
Where the work has been since it left the artist, and what documentation travels with it. A clean chain of ownership removes questions a specialist would otherwise raise, and unanswered questions come off the estimate.
Where and when it sells
The same work does not make the same money everywhere. A category can perform better at a regional saleroom than an international one, and sale dates, settlement periods and the composition of a sale all move the result.
Is there a valuation near you?
Almost always, the honest answer is that it does not matter where you are. A valuation starts from photographs — the front, the reverse, the signature or edition marking — and those travel further and faster than a painting does, at no risk to it. Most works are valued without ever leaving the wall they are hanging on. We are in London, by appointment, in W1 and E1, and we act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. Where a work genuinely does need to be seen — a large canvas, a condition question photographs cannot settle, a collection rather than a single piece — that is arranged.
What we cover
Contemporary and Post-War, Modernist, Impressionist, Old Masters, photographic art and street art — the six categories the practice works across, with over fifteen years behind them. Banksy and the wider urban contemporary market have a page of their own, because the paperwork question there is specific enough to need it. So does Hockney, where the question is almost always whether a work is a signed edition or one of the posters printed from the same image. Nearly five hundred other artists are listed in our artist A to Z.
Valuation by medium
What moves the value is not the same question in each of these, and the questions worth asking of a bronze are not the ones worth asking of a screenprint.
- Painting valuation
Oils, watercolours and works on paper — where signature, attribution and old restoration decide the figure.
- Print and edition valuation
Signed, unsigned, proofs and later printings — the distinctions that separate markets which look identical.
- Photograph valuation
Vintage against later prints, process, edition and what is written on the verso.
- Old Master valuation
Where the language of attribution — by, attributed to, studio of, after — is the whole of the value.
- Sculpture valuation
Lifetime and posthumous casts, foundry marks, edition numbering and patina.
If you decide to sell
The choice is between auction and a private sale, and it is worth making deliberately. Selling at auction sets out every fee that comes off the hammer price and how we negotiate them; private sales covers the quieter route, where discretion or timing matters more than the competition of a saleroom.
Common questions
How much is my painting worth?
It depends on what the work is, and that is a question before it is a number. The artist, whether it is unique or one of an edition, its condition, and what closely comparable works have actually sold for all move the figure, sometimes by a wide margin. Photographs and a few details are enough for us to place it, and there is no charge for that.
Is there an art valuation near me?
You do not need one nearby. Valuations here are made from photographs, so the work stays where it is and nothing is shipped or carried anywhere to be looked at. We are in London, by appointment, and act for sellers across the United Kingdom. Where a work does need to be seen in person, that is arranged.
Why is the valuation free? What is the catch?
There isn't one, and the reason is worth stating plainly. Most of what we are asked to look at we will never sell — people want to know what they have, and that is a perfectly good reason to ask. The valuations that do turn into sales pay for the ones that do not. Our fees are typically 0%, because we are paid out of the reduced seller's rates we negotiate with the auction house rather than by you, which means the incentive is to place a work where it will do best rather than to place it at all. If a work is not worth selling, we say so — at the photograph stage, before anyone has spent anything.
What does a valuation cost?
Nothing, and it carries no obligation to proceed. If a sale follows, our fees are typically 0% — on rare occasions a commission applies where the sale is complex, and because we negotiate reduced seller rates on your behalf the overall cost usually stays the same or lower.
What should I send?
A photograph and a few details are enough to begin. Images of the front and reverse, the signature or edition marking if there is one, approximate dimensions, and any paperwork that came with the work.
Is this a formal valuation for insurance or probate?
No. This is a view on what a work is likely to achieve if it were sold, which is the number that matters when you are deciding whether and where to sell. A formal written valuation for insurance or probate is a different document with a different purpose.
What happens after a valuation?
Nothing has to. If you do decide to sell, the choice is between auction and a private sale, and the right answer depends on the work, the timing and how much certainty you want. Both routes are set out on this site.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk or use the contact page. A photograph and a few details are enough to begin.
