How to Spot a Fake or Misdescribed Print

Prints are where most collectors start, and they are also where description goes wrong most often. The same image by a famous artist can exist as an original print the artist made and signed, as a later printing, as an estate edition, as a print made by someone else after the artist's design, and as a poster. All of them can look convincing in a photograph. What separates them is the description, and the checks below are how you test it.

If you are new to edition numbers, proofs and techniques, start with Limited Edition Prints Explained. This guide picks up where that one ends.

Misdescription is more common than forgery

Outright forgeries exist, but the more common problem is a genuine object described as something more than it is. Five distinctions do most of the work.

Original print or reproduction. An original print is made from a matrix the artist created or supervised. A reproduction is a copy of an existing work, usually printed photomechanically or digitally. A reproduction can be honestly signed and numbered and still be a reproduction. Be wary of "lithograph" when the object is an offset lithograph, a commercial printing process, and of "giclée" with no statement of whether it is an original digital work or a copy of a painting.

Signed by hand or signed in the plate. A signature drawn on the matrix prints identically on every impression. It is part of the image, not a signature on the sheet, and a description should say "signed in the plate" rather than just "signed".

Estate signatures and stamps. Prints signed or stamped by an estate after the artist's death are a legitimate category, but they are not signed by the artist and should never be described as if they were.

By the artist or after the artist. Many prints were made by professional printmakers working from an artist's painting or design, and auction houses describe these as "after" the artist. A well-known example is the large body of colour lithographs made by the master printer Charles Sorlier at the Mourlot workshop after designs by Marc Chagall. Another is the series of lithographs made after Picasso's paintings and drawings around 1980, hand-signed by his granddaughter Marina Picasso rather than by Picasso. These are real objects with their own histories, but they are not original prints by Chagall or Picasso, and they should be described on their own terms.

Lifetime edition or later printing. A restrike is printed from the original matrix later, sometimes long after the artist's death. It is a genuine impression, but not the edition the artist made and signed.

A signature is not proof

It is tempting to treat a pencil signature as the final word. It is not, and Salvador Dalí is the classic warning. From the 1960s Dalí signed very large numbers of blank sheets of paper, and images were later printed on them, in some cases after his death in 1989. A genuine Dalí signature on a print therefore says nothing on its own about whether the print was authorised.

Signatures can also simply be forged, and a forged pencil signature on a reproduction is one of the most common fakes in the print market. Weigh the signature alongside everything else, never instead of it.

Check it against the catalogue

For most major printmakers, a catalogue of prints exists: a scholarly record of every known edition with its technique, size, paper, edition size, printer and publisher. Picasso's prints are catalogued by Georges Bloch, and by Bernhard Geiser and Brigitte Baer. Dalí's are recorded by Albert Field, his archivist, whose catalogue also lists known fakes, and by Ralph Michler and Lutz Löpsinger. Andy Warhol's are catalogued by Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann.

Compare the print in front of you with its catalogue entry:

• Do the image and sheet dimensions match?
• Is the paper the one recorded, and does it carry the right watermark?
• Do the edition size, proofs and annotations match?
• Does the catalogue record a hand signature, and where on the sheet?
• Are the printer's and publisher's blind stamps the expected ones?

A seller who quotes a catalogue number is giving you something you can check. A seller who cannot find the print in the catalogue owes you an explanation.

What you can see with a loupe

A ten-times magnifier costs very little and answers several questions at once.

• A regular rosette of tiny dots in cyan, magenta, yellow and black is the mark of offset printing, which is how posters and most reproductions are made. Hand lithographs show irregular, grainy marks instead.
• An even, fine spray of dots suggests an inkjet print, which may be an original digital edition or a reproduction. The description should say which.
• A plate mark, the indentation around an etching or engraving, is a good sign, but one can be pressed into a reproduction to imitate it. Look at the lines themselves: in a genuine etching or engraving the ink often stands slightly proud of the paper.
• A pencil signature sits on top of the paper and catches the light. A signature printed in the same ink and dot pattern as the image is part of the printing.
• Blind stamps help identify editions, but they are evidence, not proof, because they can be imitated.

Paperwork and your rights

Ask for an invoice that describes the print fully: artist, title, date, technique, edition and the number of this impression, how and where it is signed, the catalogue reference, the printer and publisher, and whether it is a reproduction. A precise invoice protects you, because it is a written statement you can rely on.

Some places go further. In the United States, New York and California, among others, have laws requiring sellers of prints to disclose details such as whether the work is a reproduction, how it is signed and the edition size, with remedies for the buyer if the disclosure is wrong. In the UK, goods sold by a business to a consumer must match their description under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. None of this replaces checking, but it explains why a full written description matters.

Questions to ask before you buy

• Is this an original print, a print after the artist, or a reproduction?
• Is it signed by hand, signed in the plate, or estate signed or stamped?
• Is it from the lifetime edition, and who printed and published it?
• Which catalogue records it, and under what number?
• Where did it come from, and is there paperwork from the publisher, a gallery or an auction?

For checks that apply to any purchase online, see How to Buy Art Online Safely, and for what a certificate can and cannot prove, see What a Certificate of Authenticity Really Proves.

Prints on Meridian's

Listings on Meridian's can record the edition number and size, whether and where a print is signed, and the catalogue references the seller provides. The free AI research consultant on each listing can tell you whether a catalogue of the artist's prints exists, what is publicly documented about an edition and which questions to put to the seller. It does not authenticate prints or give valuations, so the seller's documents and the catalogue remain the evidence that counts.