Understanding signatures and marks · Verso evidence
Labels and marks on the back of a painting
Labels and marks on the back of a painting record its life: who supplied the canvas, who framed it, where it was exhibited, which galleries and auction houses handled it, and sometimes its title and artist. Read together, they can date a painting, establish provenance and support or contradict an attribution.
What kinds of marks are found on the back of a painting?
Verso marks fall into a few families, each with its own meaning and its own reference sources: suppliers, framers, galleries and dealers, exhibitions, auction houses, collectors, customs and transport, and handwritten inscriptions.
Artists' supplier (colorman) stamps
Ink stamps on the canvas or stretcher from firms such as Winsor & Newton, Reeves, Roberson and Lechertier Barbe in London, Lefranc, Tasset et Lhote or Paul Foinet in Paris, Schmincke in Germany, or F. Weber in Philadelphia. Addresses changed over time, so a stamp can give a date range.
Framers' and gilders' labels
Printed labels with a name and street address, sometimes with a date in pencil. Framers' addresses can be checked in city directories, which places the framing, and often the owner, in a town and decade.
Gallery and dealer labels
Labels from galleries such as Macbeth, Knoedler or Durand-Ruel often carry stock numbers. Some dealers' stock books survive in archives and can be consulted by researchers.
Exhibition labels
Labels from the Royal Academy, the Paris Salon, the Carnegie International or regional art society exhibitions typically give a title, the artist's name and address and a year. The matching catalog entry is strong evidence.
Auction stencils and lot labels
Christie's has long stenciled codes on the stretchers of works consigned to it, and other auction houses used lot labels with sale numbers. These can lead to past sale catalogs and records.
Inscriptions, customs and transport marks
Handwritten titles, names and addresses; collectors' marks; customs stamps from border crossings; shipping and storage labels. Each records a moment in the painting's history.
How do you read the back of a painting?
Document every mark before touching anything, transcribe each one, sort them by type, and then research them in order from the most datable to the most personal.
Photograph the whole back
Take an overall shot, then a close-up of each label, stamp and inscription. Photograph the stretcher bars on all four sides and the inside face of the frame.
Do not remove or clean labels
Old labels are fragile. Never peel, soak or reglue them. If one is loose, put it in an envelope with a note of where it came from and keep it with the painting.
Transcribe everything
Write out each label in full, including addresses, numbers and partial words, and note the position of each mark. Partial text is often enough to identify a firm.
Date the supplier and framer marks
Search colorman and framer names with their addresses. The National Portrait Gallery in London publishes a directory of British artists' suppliers and picture framers with dated addresses, and similar research exists for French and American firms.
Follow the exhibition and sale records
Exhibition catalogs for the Royal Academy, the Salon and many American annuals are digitized. Auction stencils and lot numbers can lead to sale catalogs through auction archives and art libraries.
Build a timeline
Arrange the marks in chronological order. A consistent sequence (supplier, exhibition, dealer, auction, framer) is a provenance; a mark that does not fit the sequence needs explaining.
What can back labels reveal?
Back labels regularly settle questions the front of a painting cannot. These examples show the most common kinds of breakthrough.
A colorman's address dates the canvas
A Winsor & Newton stamp giving the Rathbone Place address, the firm's London base for much of the nineteenth century, places a British landscape in that period, consistent with its style and supporting a Victorian date.
An exhibition label gives the title
A torn Royal Academy label shows part of a title and an artist's address in Chelsea. The exhibition catalog for the year lists the full title and confirms the painter.
A customs stamp records a journey
A French customs stamp on the stretcher of a painting now in the United States shows it crossed a border, often on its way from a Paris dealer to an American collector. Combined with a dealer label, it reconstructs the route.
A Christie's stencil
A stenciled code on the stretcher leads, through the auction house's archive, to a twentieth-century London sale where the painting was cataloged with an artist and title, a key provenance link.
A contradictory label
A painting described by family tradition as eighteenth-century carries a supplier's label from the 1920s on its original stretcher. The label is more reliable than the tradition.
What mistakes destroy verso evidence?
Most verso evidence is lost during reframing, relining and cleaning, often by people trying to tidy the painting up.
Discarding old stretchers or backing boards
Replacing a stretcher removes stencils, stamps and inscriptions with it. If a stretcher must be replaced, ask the conservator to keep the old one.
Covering the back with a new dust cover
A new paper backing can hide labels permanently. Photograph everything first, and ask the framer to cut a window or transfer loose labels.
Trusting a label without checking it
Labels can be moved from one painting to another, and later owners sometimes wrote optimistic attributions on the back. Check that the label belongs to the painting and that its information agrees with the rest.
Ignoring the frame
Framers' labels and inscriptions on the frame belong to the frame, which may have been changed. Record them separately from marks on the canvas or stretcher.
Throwing away fragments
A torn corner with half an address is still evidence. Keep every fragment, labeled with where it was found.
How can Veriso help?
Veriso reads the back of a painting as carefully as the front. Photograph each label and stamp and it transcribes the text, identifies the type of mark (supplier, framer, gallery, exhibition, auction, customs or inscription), and uses addresses, dates and names to place the painting in time and place.
Those findings are then weighed with the signature, medium, technique and style, and conflicts between them are shown rather than smoothed over. The verso section of the report gives you a structured list of leads to follow in archives and catalogs.
What is Veriso?
Veriso is an artwork investigation tool that analyzes photographs of both sides of an artwork, transcribing verso labels, stamps and inscriptions and weighing them alongside the signature, subject, medium, technique and likely period.
Veriso's findings are research, not a certificate: it does not authenticate artworks or replace a formal appraisal, and its market estimates are indicative ranges based on comparable sales. How Veriso works
Frequently asked questions
What does a stamp on the back of a canvas mean?
Most commonly it is the mark of the artists' supplier who prepared and sold the canvas. It tells you where the canvas was bought and, from the firm's name and address, roughly when.
Should I remove old labels from the back of a painting?
No. Labels are part of the painting's history and provenance. Removing or damaging them can reduce both research value and market value. Photograph them and leave them in place.
What does a number written on the stretcher mean?
It may be a dealer's stock number, an auction lot or sale code, a collection inventory number or an exhibition number. Its form, position and any accompanying label usually indicate which.
Can a label prove who painted a picture?
A label is strong evidence when it comes from an exhibition or dealer and agrees with the painting, but it is not proof on its own. Labels can be transferred or written later, so they must be checked against the work.
Where can I research old gallery and framer labels?
Start with directories of artists' suppliers and framers, such as the National Portrait Gallery's British directory, then gallery archives held by museums and research institutes, digitized exhibition catalogs and art library collections.