Sell your art
We're here to offer advice and valuations via email, phone call, text or WhatsApp. One advisor, acting for you rather than for the saleroom.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one takes a few minutes with a phone.
01Send photographs
The work itself, the reverse, the signature and any numbering, and any labels on the frame or backing board. Phone photographs are fine. This is enough to begin on almost every work we are sent.
02We identify it and value it in writing
What it is, which edition or period it belongs to, and a realistic range with the comparable results behind it — so you can see the reasoning rather than take a figure on trust. No charge, and no obligation to go further.
03You choose the route, we negotiate it
Auction or private sale, and if auction, which house and which sale. We compare the terms rather than accept a rate card, and the paperwork and remittance stay in your name throughout.
See what to send before you begin.
- 15+
- Years in the market
- Contemporary, modern and photographic art, from editions to unique works.
- 0%
- Our typical fee
- Occasionally 2.5–10% where a sale is complex, and said in advance either way.
- 6
- Categories covered
- From Old Masters through to street art, each with its own salerooms.
Before you write
Send as much or as little as you have to hand.
- The work, front and back
- Photograph both sides. On editions the inscriptions that place a work are as often on the reverse as the front, and on framed works nobody may have seen them for decades.
- Dimensions and medium
- Height and width, and whether it is a painting, a print, a photograph or a work on paper. Approximate is fine.
- Anything that came with it
- Invoices, certificates, gallery correspondence, or simply where and when it reached you. Provenance is the part owners most often assume is unimportant and specialists ask about first.
What we sell
Art only, across 6 categories. Each one has its own salerooms, its own buyers and its own calendar, and choosing between them is most of what an advisor is for.
- Contemporary and Post-War Art
Work from 1945 to now — the most actively traded category at auction, and the one where estimates move fastest.
- Modernist Art
Early- and mid-twentieth-century painting and sculpture, where condition and exhibition history carry unusual weight.
- Impressionist Art
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, a market that rewards impeccable provenance above almost everything else.
- Old Master Paintings and Drawings
Pre-1800 painting and works on paper, where attribution and scholarship determine value more than fashion.
- Photographic Art
Vintage and contemporary photography, where print date, edition and printer matter as much as the image.
- Street Art and Urban Contemporary
Banksy and the wider urban contemporary market, where authentication paperwork is often half the value.
Two ways we sell
We compare both before recommending either, and we broker private sales ourselves — so read the second one as an interested party’s account of its own product.
At auction
Open competition on the day, and the higher ceiling where a work is fresh to the market. Bound to the sale calendar, and a work that fails to sell carries that record with it afterwards. We choose the house and the sale, and negotiate the seller's terms.
By private sale
Faster, discreet, and nothing is published if it does not find a buyer. Suits work that has been offered before, or where an owner would rather not have an estimate on public record. We broker the sale directly.
Common questions
How do I start?
Send photographs and whatever you know about the work. There is no form to complete beyond the one on our contact page, no fee, and no commitment of any kind at this stage. Most enquiries can be answered from images alone.
Why is the valuation free? What is the catch?
There isn't one. Most of what we are asked to look at we will never sell, because people want to know what they have and that is reason enough to ask; the valuations that do turn into sales pay for the ones that do not. We are paid out of the reduced seller's rates we negotiate with the auction house rather than by you, so the incentive is to place a work where it will do best rather than to place it at all.
What does it cost to sell through you?
Our fees are typically 0%. On rare occasions we may need to charge a 2.5% to 10% commission where the sale is complex. Even then, because we negotiate reduced seller's rates on your behalf, the overall cost is usually the same or lower than consigning directly, and extra unsold and marketing fees can often be avoided entirely.
Will you value a work before I decide whether to sell?
Yes, and most people who contact us have not decided. We advise on likely pricing using results from a specialist art price database, and a valuation carries no obligation to proceed. Knowing what something is worth is a perfectly good reason to ask on its own.
Which auction houses do you work with?
We have extensive experience working with all major auction houses. We are not affiliated with any of them, which is the point — we compare them on your behalf.
How long does selling take?
A private sale usually completes within two to six weeks. Auction is bound to the sale calendar — normally two to four months from consignment to payment, and longer if the right specialist sale is further out.
What if my work turns out not to be worth selling?
We will tell you, and we would rather tell you at the photograph stage than after anyone has spent anything. Not every work rewards the cost of handling it properly, and an advisor who never says so is not much use to you.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house. Nothing here is investment advice.
Send images and any paperwork to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start from the bar below. A few photographs are enough.
A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Where to sell paintings in the UK
Four routes, and the work decides between them rather than the seller’s postcode. An international saleroom in London reaches the widest audience and charges accordingly. A regional saleroom costs less to use and, in some categories, genuinely performs better — a Northern painting can make more in the North than it would in a Bond Street sale that treats it as a minor lot. A private sale is quieter and quicker, and is often right where discretion or timing matters more than the competition of a room. An online marketplace suits decorative work of modest value and very little else.
Which is why the first question is what the work is, not where it should go. Selling at auction sets out every fee that comes off a hammer price and how those are negotiated; private sales covers the other route. If you are still at the stage of wondering what something is worth, the valuation page is the place to start, and it costs nothing.
Selling old paintings
Inherited and long-held work carries one extra step before any of that applies: establishing what it actually is. An unsigned nineteenth-century landscape and a minor work by a listed artist can look much the same on a wall and behave nothing alike in a saleroom, and the difference is usually settled from the reverse — labels, stamps, stretcher marks and old inscriptions — rather than from the picture itself. Photograph the back as carefully as the front.
Where can I sell my paintings in the UK?
There are four routes, and which one suits depends on the work rather than on your postcode. An international saleroom in London reaches the widest audience and charges for it. A regional saleroom costs less and, for some categories, actually performs better. A private sale is quieter and quicker, and is often the right answer where discretion or timing matters. An online marketplace suits low-value decorative work and rarely suits anything else. We compare the first three for the specific work and tell you which we would use.
Where can I sell old paintings?
The same routes, with one extra step first: establishing what it is. An unsigned nineteenth-century landscape and a minor work by a listed artist look similar on a wall and behave completely differently in a saleroom. That question is worth answering before anyone decides where the work should go, and photographs are usually enough to answer it.