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Prints? Originals? Help!
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Message
Posted
Hi guys I am new here but this seems like a friendly place so I hope you don't mind me posting what probably are really stupid questions!
I have only in the last couple of years developed a love of art and now can't stop buying pictures I like (I need my own gallery!). Mostly I buy from charity shops like in the ones below. My question is how can I tell if these are prints as I assumed, or something better as I can only dream!
They were only £3 each and when I turned them over I was surprised how old they looked. Having done some research into Rappini I learned he painted water colours in the late C19th, some of which now sell for £1000's. So are my £3 buys worth a lot more, is there a tell-tale sign of what is an original water colour and what is a print? Even if prints would they have any monetary value or was £3 all their money?
The bigger picture I am pretty sure must be a print of a J Nash original, but the only mention I can find of this image is dated at 1873, and this has the date of 1844. Also the quality seems incredibly fine, is it a coloured etching or something along those lines? The text under reads "Fireplace, gatehouse, Kenilworth" as far as I can tell.
Hard to do them justice with a mobile phone camera but here we go!
Any help/thoughts is appreciated, thank you
Posted
Ask yourself this: if the person who sold them to you thought they were original watercolours, would s/he have let you have them for £3 each?
It's really hard to tell if they're watercolours, prints, etchings or what they are from images on a screen, but I know the Arab/horse pictures, in that I've seen them before - I don't know where the originals are, sadly, but these are prints; and rather nice prints, if you like this sort of thing. They're old, anything up to 90 - 100 years, maybe a little more, and if you were to put them in a clean, acid-free mount and a new frame you could probably sell them for a few tens of pounds. But then you'd have lost an awful lot of their charm, so far as I'm concerned. If you just want to show them at home, I'd take them to a good framer/conservator who could advise you how much of the original mount and frame could be saved, and would do something about those very aged backing boards, which in their present state are likely to be vulnerable to damp and insect damage.
In short - you have some nice old prints, in my opinion. You could just keep them as they are and enjoy them - after all, they've lasted this long in that condition - but they would look really good if re-mounted, so - up to you. There's not a huge fortune here though. On the other hand, who else will have prints like these? Not many of us. Don't hang them in direct sunlight.
Posted
PS - what gives real watercolours away is the texture, best examined by removing the glass: there'll no no sheen at all on them, to start with, and the paper will be quite thick. A print is usually a little shiny, if not actually glossy, and normally - not always - on a lighter-weight paper. It helps to identify them as prints if there are printed words, or serial numbers/initials, on the surround, if there is one: you'll have to remove the mount to see them, probably.
Posted
The difference may be subtle, but there is one, between your question and those who float a picture before us (without any useful details at all, like the photographs you took of the backing boards, for instance) and expect us to be able to identify it. Given the millions of paintings, prints and etchings lurking around the world, the possibility of our being able to make any kind of identification of those pieces is slight in the extreme. And what I think started people getting annoyed in the first place was a series of pictures from Chinese art factories, which were being dropped on here as a deliberate come-on.
You weren't doing that - you asked an intelligent question, and you already knew something of the subject. And you've offered us a view of particularly nice prints, some of which actually I DID recognize. So don't feel bad about your post, it was perfectly acceptable and reasonable, and not one of those that have got on the nerves of one or two of us.
By the way, I recognize that charity shops aren't keen on old prints or paintings - because usually they know perfectly well they're either of no value, or tat; and they don't normally sell, or at least not for much; they've got them because those who donated them couldn't flog 'em themselves. There are a few little gems tucked away among the clinker, but very few.