How to Tell If a Painting Is Old

The short answer

Turn the painting over. The canvas, the stretcher, how the canvas is fixed and any labels tell you more about when it was made than the picture does. No single clue proves age. You are looking for several that point to the same period.

Start with the back

• Canvas. Old canvas darkens to brown or grey-brown with age and grime. A bright, even, white back suggests recent work, or an old painting that has been relined onto new canvas.
• Tacks or staples. Canvas held by tacks along the edges is typical of older work. Staples became common for stretching canvas from the mid-20th century. Paintings are often restretched, so look for old tack holes next to the staples.
• Stretcher. Keyed stretchers, with small wooden wedges in the corners, have been standard for two centuries and are still made, so keys alone do not date a painting. Many canvases and stretchers carry an art supplier’s stamp; suppliers moved premises over the years, so the address on the stamp can narrow the date.
• Board. Some supports date a painting on their own. Masonite hardboard was invented in 1924, so a painting on Masonite cannot be older than that.
• Labels and inscriptions. Gallery, framer, exhibition and auction labels can date a painting and record its history. A label with a ZIP code was printed in 1963 or later. A telephone number with an exchange name, such as “MUrray Hill 5”, points earlier.

Six places on one real back

Here is one painting back, drawn and photographed, with six places on it that are worth a close look.

• Fibre: a loose thread at a frayed edge. Linen is grey-brown with long fibres and thick spots; cotton is cream and soft; jute is coarse; polyester is bright white and smooth.
• Weave: the bare canvas in the middle. The same thread at the same spacing all over points to a power loom; uneven, wandering threads to a hand loom.
• Edges: where the canvas folds round the wooden bars. Bare canvas tacked all round is untouched; paint over the fold, or newer strips glued along the edges, mean it was restretched, repaired, or cut down.
• Keys: wedges in the inside corners make the frame a stretcher that can be tightened; fixed corners make it a strainer. As above, neither dates a painting on its own.
• Label: a canvas maker’s label can name the maker, the town and even the priming. This one, Målarduk Nr 300 from AB Wilh. Becker in Stockholm, lists titanium white, a white that came into use only in the 20th century, so the canvas is modern.
• Writing: pencil, chalk, ink or stencils on the bars: titles, names, dates, and stock or sale numbers. This back carries its title in pencil.

Hold a painting by its stretcher or frame, never by the canvas, and leave anything flaking or fragile as it is. These are leads, not proof of age, authenticity or attribution: many old paintings have a later canvas glued to the back, old canvas gets reused, and labels and writing can be added at any time. Close-ups of all six places, and what to photograph at each, are in the photo guidelines.

Then read the surface

• Cracks. Oil paint and varnish develop a fine network of cracks over decades. Cracks that look painted on, that stop short of the edges, or that run in a regular pattern across a print suggest artificial ageing.
• Varnish. Old natural-resin varnish yellows, giving the whole picture an even amber tone. A crisp, colourless surface fits recent work or a recent cleaning.
• Paint. Acrylic paint reached artists around 1950, so a painting in acrylic is mid-20th century or later. Acrylic looks flatter and dries more evenly than oil.
• Ultraviolet light. Under a blacklight torch, aged varnish glows a milky green and later retouching shows as dark patches. This reveals restoration more than age, but heavy retouching matters for value.

The frame is weaker evidence

Frames are swapped all the time. An old frame on a new painting, or a new frame on an old one, is common, so treat the frame as a separate object. A painting that fits its frame exactly, with matching wear and old nail holes, is more likely to have been in it for a long time.

Age is not value

Proving a painting is old does not make it valuable. Many 19th-century amateur and decorative paintings sell for modest sums. Once you know the age, the questions that set the price are who painted it, whether it is really a painting and what state it is in. See how much is my painting worth and how to tell an original from a print.

A 90-second check

1. Photograph the front, the whole back and every label.
2. Note the support: canvas, board, Masonite, paper or wood panel.
3. Look at how the canvas is fixed: tacks, staples or both.
4. Check the corners for keys and the stretcher for a supplier’s stamp.
5. Look across the surface in raking light for cracks and texture.
6. Measure the painting without its frame.