Fine Art Appraisals
Paintings, sculpture, prints, and photography — for donation, estate, insurance, and division.
This practice is machinery, equipment, business inventory, firearms, antiques and full household contents. Fine art are identified, described and scheduled when they form part of an estate or contents assignment — but a standalone valuation belongs with a specialist art appraiser, and anything of real value is referred to one whose finding is incorporated under their own name.
If your matter is an estate, a divorce, a donation or an insurance loss that happens to include fine art, that is ordinary work here and the page below applies. See what is appraised here →
Personal property valuation is not a state-licensed activity. These assignments are performed as desk appraisals from photographs and documentation, which means NextPhase accepts them anywhere in the United States and internationally.
What drives the number
Attribution and provenance drive art value more than medium or size. Where attribution is uncertain, the report says so plainly and values accordingly rather than assuming the optimistic case — which is exactly what makes it hold up on IRS review.
Commonly appraised
- Oil, acrylic, and watercolor
- Limited edition prints and lithographs
- Sculpture and mixed media
- Fine art photography
- Regional and Western art
- Estate collections
What we'll need from you
- Photographs of the full work, signature, verso, and any labels
- Artist, title, medium, and dimensions
- Any certificates, gallery records, or exhibition history
- Purchase records and prior appraisals
- Condition notes — restoration, damage, or relining
Charitable donation of art above the IRS threshold requires a qualified appraisal and may be subject to Art Advisory Panel review. Reports are prepared with that in mind.
What actually moves the number
Every asset class has its own small number of factors that do most of the work. For fine art they are these, and they are the reason a general-purpose valuation and a considered one can be so far apart.
Attribution is the whole ballgame
"By", "attributed to", "studio of", "circle of", "after" — these are terms of art with settled meanings, and the distance between the first and the last is enormous. An appraisal states which one applies and what supports it. Where attribution is genuinely uncertain, that uncertainty is reported rather than resolved in the owner's favor.
The artist's market, not the artist's reputation
What matters is whether that artist's work trades, where, and at what level — an artist with a museum reputation and no auction record is a harder valuation than a minor artist who sells steadily. Regional artists with strong local markets are a common and pleasant surprise.
Condition is technical and expensive to be wrong about
Relining, overpaint, tears, craquelure, foxing on works on paper, light damage. Some are reversible, most are not, and several are only visible under raking light or UV. Where condition cannot be assessed from photographs, the report says which questions remain open.
Edition and medium for prints
An original print, a limited edition, a signed open edition and a reproduction occupy four different markets, and the terminology used by the seller at the time is frequently wrong. Establishing which it is comes before any question of value.
Who reads the finished report
The IRS Art Advisory Panel reviews donated and estate artwork above a threshold, and an art appraisal is more likely than any other personal property class to be looked at by specialists. That raises the bar on specific description, on the comparable selection, and on how attribution is worded. Insurers want replacement in the retail gallery market, which is a different number from fair market value on the same day, for the same painting.
How the fee gets set
Art prices on research depth, not on the number of works. One painting with an unclear signature and no history can take longer than a dozen documented pieces by known artists. Where attribution research or a conservator's opinion is needed, that is quoted before it starts, never added afterwards.
What arrived
An oil on canvas, no visible signature, a nineteenth-century-looking frame, and a family attribution to a named regional artist.
What was established first
That the frame is not evidence of the painting's date — frames are replaced routinely, and a period frame on a later canvas is common.
What the research reached
The named artist has a documented body of work and a thin but real auction record. Nothing in the canvas contradicted the attribution and nothing supported it either.
How it was reported
Valued as by an unidentified hand in the manner and period indicated, with the family attribution recorded as reported but not relied upon, and the specific further research that could change the conclusion named. The owner can commission that research knowing what it would buy.
Three things that cost people money
All three are done with good intentions, usually by someone trying to help. They are worth knowing whoever you end up hiring.
- Cleaning or reframing before valuation
A well-meaning clean can remove a glaze the artist applied. Reframing discards evidence — labels, stamps and inscriptions on the reverse and on the frame are often the only documentary history a picture has.
- Relying on what the gallery said at purchase
A retail sales description is not an attribution and was written to sell. It is recorded as what the owner was told, and independently assessed.
- Assuming an insurance figure works for the IRS
Replacement value in the retail market is routinely well above fair market value for the same work on the same day. Filing the insurance number on a donation is a straightforward way to attract attention.
Machinery & Equipment
A tractor, a CNC cell, an imaging suite or a whole facility inventory is personal property too, and it is usually worth more than everything else in the estate combined. Same appraiser, same standard, its own schedule of comparables.
| Scope | Typical fee |
|---|---|
| 1 item or lot | $75 – $150 |
| 2–10 items | $125 – $250 |
| 11–50 items | $200 – $400 |
| 50+ items / full contents | quoted per engagement |
Related personal property assets
Questions about fine art
Can you authenticate my painting?
No, and be careful with anyone who says they can. Authentication is a separate discipline, generally resting with an artist's foundation, a catalogue raisonné committee, or a recognized scholar. An appraisal states attribution and the evidence for it; it does not certify authorship.
Do you need to see it in person?
Frequently not. Good photographs — the full work square-on, the signature area, the reverse, the edges, and any damage — are enough for most assignments. Where an in-person examination would change the conclusion, that is said before the work is quoted, not after.
What about prints and photographs?
Both are in scope. For prints the first questions are process, edition and state; for photographs, whether it is a vintage print or a later one from the same negative — a distinction that can be the difference between two very different markets.
The artist is my relative. Is it worth anything?
Possibly, and it is worth asking rather than assuming. An artist with no commercial market has personal property value rather than art-market value, and a report that says so honestly is more useful to an executor than an inflated one.
Ready for a number you can defend?
Tell us what you have and what it's for. You get a fixed written quote — never an hourly meter, never a sales call.
What the work actually looks like
Real assignments, client details removed — what each engagement actually turned on, rather than how it felt.
A house, a workshop of machine tools, a forty-year firearms collection and a stake in the family company — four disciplines that three appraisers had only partly covered. One engagement, one effective date, one set of assumptions.
A donation the regulations would have aggregated past the appraisal threshold, which the donor had assessed item by item. One qualified appraisal covering the group, itemized, signed inside the window the regulations allow.
An opposing report whose number was not obviously wrong — which is what made it dangerous. It failed on its own certification, and was answered section by section with an independent valuation to the correct definition of value.