Home›How to collect antique paintings›Reading Attribution on an Antique Pai...
Reading Attribution on an Antique Painting
Attribution language is the standardised vocabulary used to say how close an antique painting stands to a named artist. From signed to after, each of the seven terms describes a real and specific relationship, and each is a statement about evidence rather than about quality.
Swipe →
| closest to the artist |
Signed | by the painter's own hand | |
| Attributed to | probably his, without certainty | ||
| Studio of | made in his workshop | ||
| Circle of | a painter close to him, in his own time | ||
| Follower of | in his manner, in his lifetime | ||
| Manner of | in his style, but later | ||
| furthest from him |
After | a copy of one of his compositions | |
| The ladder measures distance from a documented hand. It does not measure how good the painting is. | |||
Evidence, not merit
Why the Words Matter More Than They Look |
Nothing confuses a new collector of Old Master paintings more than this vocabulary, and nothing matters more. The terms are not decoration and they are not modesty. They are the trade's way of saying exactly how much is known, and they are read as such by every specialist, auctioneer and insurer who will ever look at the picture.
The essential point is that they describe evidence, not merit. A superb canvas by an unrecorded follower sits lower on the ladder than a weak studio piece, and it may well be the better painting.
It follows that the terms toward the bottom are not apologies. Circle of, follower of and after all describe original paintings, made by trained professionals, on the materials of their own century. They simply say, honestly, that the master's own hand cannot be claimed.
The eighth rung
What French School and Flemish School Mean |
Not every rung is occupied at any given moment, and we do not stretch a term to fill a gap. An antique painting that cannot honestly be placed on one of these seven is catalogued to its school. French School, Flemish School, Italian School, Dutch School, followed by a century.
That is the last rung of all, and the one most often misread. It names no individual, but it is not a shrug. It says the materials, the handling, the subject conventions and the format all belong to a documented tradition, and that the tradition is recognised even though the hand is not. Most paintings ever made were never signed, and a great many of the best surviving Old Masters carry exactly this description.
Three rules
Reading Attribution Before You Buy |
Read the term before the name. The name draws the eye. The term is what makes the claim. A master's name alone and the same name qualified by manner of are two completely different objects, and only one of them is being offered.
Distrust a bare name. A catalogue entry giving a master's name with no qualifier, on a work with no documented provenance, is making the strongest possible claim on the weakest possible ground. Our own listings never do this.
Judge the painting as well as the label. Attribution describes probability. Quality is something you can see for yourself, and on a wall it is quality you live with.
Two guides follow the ladder into practice, from opposite ends.
Period copies after the Old Masters takes the bottom rung and asks what a copy after Poussin or Van Dyck actually is. Royal portraits made to be copied takes the one genre where multiplication was the design rather than the accident.
