I buy almost all of the paintings for The Warner Store online, and the first thing I check is the measurements. It’s partly practical, but mostly I’m trying to imagine where the painting might go. Is it something that could sit over a sofa, or would it work better in a hallway above a console table? Is it a statement piece or something small that would be lovely next to a bed? I’m trying to marry the subject of the painting with its size and the sort of space I can imagine it living in. Sometimes I love a painting but the combination just doesn’t quite work.
Even after all this time, I still struggle to judge scale from photographs and written dimensions. I have certain sizes that I know well enough now, but anything substantially bigger or smaller and I’ll measure it out on a wall. I’d always suggest a customer does the same. Measurements written on a screen can be surprisingly meaningless until you actually see what 80cm looks like.
Distant Land measures 102x77cm framed
After that, I look at the condition report, although these often don’t tell you very much, and I zoom in on every photograph I can. I’m looking at the canvas, the surface of the painting and the frame, but there’s a limit to what you can establish if the photographs aren’t particularly high resolution. Sometimes you zoom in and all you get is a larger, grainier version of something you couldn’t see properly in the first place. Buying art online is, to some extent, a leap of faith.
I’ve had paintings arrive with much more paint loss than I could see in the photographs, sometimes enough that I’ve decided I wouldn’t be happy selling them. But I’ve also had the opposite happen. A painting arrives and the colours are more vibrant, the surface is more interesting and the whole thing is much better than I’d expected.
Then there are the occasional paintings that aren’t necessarily worse than they looked online, just different. Perhaps the frame and painting don’t work together as well in person, or the surface and brushwork lack the quality I thought I could see in the photographs. Sometimes there isn’t anything particularly wrong with it — it just leaves me a bit cold.
Being on the receiving end of that has made me very conscious of how I photograph paintings for The Warner Store. I spend a lot of time comparing the photographs on my screen with the painting sitting in front of me, particularly the colours, because I want the palette shown online to be as close as possible to what somebody will see when the painting arrives. It’s also something I want to invest more in: really good, high-resolution photography so that customers can properly zoom in and look at the paint surface, canvas and frame for themselves.
Colour is particularly difficult because a painting can contain far more variation than a photograph suggests. I once had a customer considering Forest Edge, a painting made up of lots of different greens and browns, and I wanted to give them a better idea of what those colours looked like in real life. I live in a house that we’re renovating, so I have a lot of paint charts. I put a Farrow & Ball paint chart next to the painting and photographed the two together. It seemed a useful reference point because they’re colours lots of people have seen in real life.
If you’re buying a painting from somewhere other than The Warner Store, I think the most useful thing you can do is try to fill in whatever the photographs can’t tell you. Start with the measurements and actually mark them out on the wall rather than trying to imagine them. Look closely at the frame as well as the painting and zoom in as far as the photographs will allow. Read whatever condition information is provided and, if there’s something you can’t see or aren’t sure about, ask. You can ask for a close-up, another photograph or a video. If the exact colours are important to you, ask whether the seller can photograph the painting in daylight or give you another point of reference.
Bouquet and Open Window - a closer look at the detail
Frames can be difficult to assess online too. Again, good photographs make an enormous difference. But there are also things that can look rather alarming in a photograph that don’t particularly worry me. Gaps where the corners of an old frame meet can often be sorted quite easily, as can a canvas that is a little loose in its frame. As I wrote in How I choose vintage paintings for The Warner Store, I’m generally fairly relaxed about the knocks and imperfections that come with old paintings and frames.
Occasionally there isn’t enough information to understand much at all. I bought French Florals in Glass Vase from photographs where I couldn’t even tell whether the painting came with a frame. I loved the painting itself — the brushwork was beautiful and the colours were wonderful — so I decided it didn’t really matter. If it arrived unframed, or in a frame I didn’t like, I could have it framed. When it arrived, it was in a beautiful green frame. I was thrilled and it sold almost immediately.
I don’t always take the risk, though. Auction listings move quickly and I often don’t have time to contact an auction house and wait for more photographs or a video. Increasingly, if the images aren’t good enough for me to feel comfortable, I just pass. There are plenty of other wonderful paintings to bid on.
Artist information can involve a little uncertainty too. In most cases I find signatures and attributions are accurate, but not always. I’ve had a painting listed under the wrong artist and recognised the signature and style because I’d previously had work by the actual artist in the collection. A name attached to an online listing can be useful information, but I wouldn’t let it override what I can see in the painting itself.
As a customer, of course, you don’t have to make quite the same snap decisions I sometimes do at auction. There’s no reason to feel awkward about asking a dealer for more information. If you’re considering a painting from The Warner Store and there’s something you can’t see properly, I’d love for you to ask. I can send more photographs, take a video, photograph a detail more closely or even get the Farrow & Ball charts out again. I’d much rather answer a few more questions before somebody buys a painting than have them open the parcel and discover it isn’t what they thought they were buying.
There will always be something slightly uncertain about buying a painting you haven’t stood in front of. You can check the measurements, look closely at the photographs and ask about condition, but you’re still buying an object with a surface, texture and presence that a screen can’t reproduce perfectly. That’s part of buying old paintings online. My job as a dealer is to make your leap of faith as small as I can.
