Article: How to Collect Antique Paintings

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Collecting antique paintings begins with learning to look: reading a signature, weighing an attribution, judging condition, and knowing the traditions a painting belongs to. This page maps our collecting guides — each written from the paintings in our own collection, from a signed Chaplin panel to a Barbizon canvas by Renault. These guides draw on more than 1,100 paintings handled and sold since 2017. Start with the eye: how to read a signature, an attribution, the condition of a canvas. Or start with the traditions: landscape, portrait, animal and sacred painting.

Learning to Look · The Landscape Tradition · The Portrait Tradition · Animal Painting · Sacred Subjects

Learning to Look

Artist signature and date 1882 on an oil painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin

How to Read Signatures and Inscriptions
A signature is a clue, not a verdict: where to look, how to read monograms and dates, and the red flags.

The attribution ladder from signed to after, how far a painting stands from the named master

Reading Attribution
The ladder from signed to after: how far a painting stands from the named master, and what each rung means.

Also in this series: Original, Copy, or After: What Old Master Copies Are Worth · Period Copies After the Old Masters · Relined, Restored, Craquelure: Understanding Condition

The Landscape Tradition

Charles Edmond Renault, Women by the River, signed Barbizon School oil on canvas

The Barbizon School in Painting
The pillar of the series: what the school was, how to recognise a period painting, and the works in our collection.

Shepherd with his flock and a brown cow under a wide sky, 19th century French pastoral oil painting

Pastoral Scenes: Shepherds and Sheep
The shepherd and his flock in nineteenth-century French painting — and the figure as the measure of the land.

Also in this series: Haystacks in French Painting: Before and After Monet · Animated Landscapes: Figures in 19th-Century French Painting · French Impressionist Landscape Painting Beyond the Famous Names

Browse our antique landscape paintings →

The Portrait Tradition

Portrait of a lady with hat, 18th century French oil painting on canvas

Collecting 18th-Century French Portraits
The century of the portrait: schools, sitters, and what makes an eighteenth-century French face worth acquiring.

Also in this series: Rigaud, Tocqué and the French Rococo Portrait · Portraits of Unknown Sitters · French Impressionist Portraits Beyond the Famous Names · Habsburg Portraits · Royal Portraits, Made to Be Copied

Browse our antique portraits →

Animal Painting

Two tigers in a landscape, oil on canvas, circle of Eugene Delacroix

Animal Painting in 19th-Century France
From Delacroix's tigers to the farmyard: how France made the animal a serious subject.

Two King Charles Spaniels, 17th century oil painting, circle of Desportes

Collecting Antique Dog Portraits
People buy landscapes for the wall and dogs for the heart: the tradition, breed by breed.

Browse our antique animal paintings →

Sacred Subjects

Mary Magdalene Repentant, 17th century Flemish oil on copper, circle of Van Diepenbeeck

Mary Magdalene in Painting
The most human figure in sacred art, and why her image dominated European painting for four centuries.

Also in this series: Judith and Holofernes in Painting · Salome and the Head of John the Baptist · The Samaritan Woman at the Well

Browse our antique religious paintings →

Explore Further

The schools behind these guides are mapped in our Art Movements & Schools pages — the history behind each tradition — and the painters themselves in Painters & Their Masters, each with a full biography. New guides join this page as the collection grows.

Photographs of the paintings in our collection by GalerieClub Fine Art.