How Much Does an Original Oil Painting Cost? What You're Paying For

Original oil paintings are priced primarily by time and size, modified by the artist's career stage and market, and the materials used. A mid-size oil on linen (around 80 × 100 cm / 31 × 39 in) represents at minimum 20–40 hours of active work, professional-grade materials, and in most cases years of developed skill. These costs cannot be reduced to commodity levels. What you are paying for is not a reproduced image but a singular object with a cost floor rooted in real labor and materials.

What goes into the price

Time. This is the primary cost. An oil painting cannot be rushed: layers must dry between applications, and the process of building a painting over multiple sessions is not compressible. A technically complex 100 × 100 cm (39 × 39 in) work may involve 30–60 hours of total painting time, spread over weeks of drying and revisiting.

Materials. Professional oil paints use real pigments — often ground from minerals or rare organic sources — rather than the synthetic substitutes in student-grade paints. The difference in longevity, color depth, and handling is significant. Linen canvas is more expensive than cotton but is considered the archival standard for oil painting. Professional varnish, stretcher bars, and mounting hardware add further cost. For a 100 × 100 cm painting, the material cost alone may be several hundred euros.

Skill and development. A painter with 10 years of daily practice, international exhibition history, and a developing collector market prices their time differently from a recent graduate. This is not pretension — it reflects the accumulated knowledge that allows the work to be what it is.

Unique status. An original painting exists once. There is no second copy, no edition of 500. When it is sold, it is gone from the artist's catalog. The scarcity is real, not manufactured.

Size and price

Most painters price primarily by surface area, with adjustments for complexity and time. As a rough guide, a painting twice as wide in each dimension has four times the surface area and costs roughly three to four times as much to produce.

[[NEEDS: actual price ranges from the current catalog — e.g., small (40×50 cm): €X–Y, mid (80×100 cm): €X–Y, large (100×120 cm+): €X–Y]]

Works marked "sold" in the catalog establish a market reference point — they represent what a collector agreed to pay for that scale and quality. Available works are priced on the listing page.

The artist's career and experience

An emerging artist with a few years of practice prices differently from one whose work has appeared in international exhibitions, whose paintings are in private collections across multiple countries, and whose career is actively tracked by collectors.

For context: the studio behind this site has produced more than 400 paintings, exhibited internationally in New York, Paris, Madrid, and Moscow, and has works in private collections in Russia, the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. In 2023, one painting appeared on the cover of a major US publisher's bestseller (Bantam Books / Penguin Random House). These are not decorative credentials — they reflect an active career and a market for the work.

Why buying direct is cheaper

When an artist sells through a gallery, the gallery takes 40–50% commission on each sale. The artist prices upward to ensure their net revenue covers their costs and time. When you buy directly from the artist, you are paying the artist's equivalent net — without the gallery markup.

For a work priced at €2,000 through a gallery, the artist receives €1,000–1,200. Buying the same work directly from the artist at €1,200–1,400 saves you €600–800 and means the full price goes to the person who made it.

Is it good value?

Original art is a singular object. It ages well, it changes with the light in the room, it carries a history from the artist's hand to your wall. It is not competing with interior products on a cost-per-unit basis. The value is in what it is, not in what it replicates.

If the question is whether to spend significantly more for an original versus a high-quality print of the same image: see Original Art vs. Prints for an honest comparison. If the question is whether a commission is within range, see How to Commission a Painting. To browse available works with current pricing, visit the gallery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are original oil paintings so expensive?

The primary cost is time. A mid-size oil painting (80 × 100 cm / 31 × 39 in) typically takes 15–40 hours of active painting time, plus drying time between layers that can stretch weeks. Add professional-grade materials (oil paint, linen canvas, stretcher bars, varnish) and you arrive quickly at a minimum cost floor well above a print.

Does the size of a painting determine its price?

Size is the most predictable pricing variable. Most artists price by surface area — a canvas twice as wide costs roughly four times as much to produce (materials scale with surface area; time scales roughly the same way). But size is not the only factor: highly worked, technically complex pieces may cost more than their size would suggest.

Are original paintings a good investment?

Works by artists whose careers are actively developing and whose work is collecting seriously can appreciate significantly. Paintings bought directly from the artist, with full provenance documentation, are in the best position for future value. That said, buying art primarily as investment rather than for the work itself usually leads to poor choices on both counts.

Is buying directly from the artist cheaper than from a gallery?

Yes, usually. Galleries typically take 40–50% commission. An artist selling directly can price at the equivalent of their gallery net — meaning you pay what the artist would receive from a gallery sale, not the gallery mark-up price. That is a significant difference for mid-size works.

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