Commercial topics such as the female nude will make a work easier to sell.
In 1987, a couple took a painting they had been given by their mother-in-law to the British version of the "Antiques Roadshow" television show. It turned out to be a lost masterpiece by the Victorian artist Richard Dadd, with a value of nearly $200,000. While you're unlikely to be quite so lucky, there is a chance that the picture or other piece of art you picked up at a flea market or yard sale might be worth a tidy sum.
Instructions
1. Look at the subject matter. Some topics are more popular than others. Nude females, cats, dogs, children playing, naval and military scenes are all very commercial. Seascapes are also popular as long as the sea isn't stormy. The wrong elements, such as dead animals or a sinister-looking figure in the foreground, can reduce the value of a picture. The importance of subject matter applies in other forms of art, such as sculpture, with nude females and animals again having the most appeal.
2. Check for signs of age. Examine the backs of paintings for old, brown canvas and rusty nails. With pieces of sculpture, look for changes in patina from the piece being handled.
3. Look at the medium the artwork employs. Some are inherently more prestigious than others. In paintings, oils are more prestigious than watercolors -- this is because an oil painting might take months to complete, while a watercolor may only take a few hours. You can identify watercolors because they are usually framed behind glass, with transparent colors that sink into the paper. Oil paint is built up in layers that look three-dimensional in places, and is usually left unglazed, or not framed behind glass. With sculpture, figures cast in heavy bronze or carved from hard, polished, close-grained stone, such as marble or alabaster, will always command commercial interest.
4. Examine the piece for a signature. Art attributable to a particular artist will usually be far easier to sell than an unsigned piece. On paintings, the signature is generally in one of the bottom corners, but it's also worth checking the back, as a professional artist will often put the name and the address of the studio there. On sculptures, check the base.
5. Check to see whether an artist's signature is accompanied by a number such as "6/20." This tells you that the artwork is part of a limited edition -- the number after the forward slash is the size of the edition, while the first digit gives you the individual number of your piece. Limited editions appeal to collectors, but only if the size of the edition is no more than 100.
