You can do it. There are a set of steps. But for starters, let's eliminate the situation when it comes to works of unknown authorship, without signatures, as well as paintings by amateur artists, amateur copies and mass reproductions. All of them often cost symbolic money, 1,000-5,000 rubles. The age of the picture (old — not old) is also not a criterion for its price. So we take it as a condition that the name of the author of the evaluated work is known in advance and the picture is signed. Then the general procedure will be something like this:

1. Measure the height and width of the work. Make high-quality photos of a relatively small size (1–3 MB). You can take them with your smartphone. The main thing is that they are sharp and without strong distortion.
2. Send photos, the name of the artist and the size of the painting by e-mail to auction houses specializing in art. You can send them to several places at once. And ask them a neat question: “Will you take it to bid? And if so, at what price?” If the auctions are interested in your painting, then they answer in detail. And you get several opinions for the price for free. Well, if there is no interest... Some auctions also comment on the refusal, although rarely. Among the common reasons is the artist’s lack of auction history. In addition, auctions do not work with amateur painting, copies and reproductions.
3. How to double-check the received price information? You can try to find your own free published auction prices of your artist. If we are talking about a famous author, then at your service are the web-sites of international auction houses — Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams, as well as reports published on the sites of Russian auction houses. Usually for Russian auctions, a request in yandex.ru like “artist name, auction price” is enough. If the results were found in principle, then this in itself is a good sign. At least this means that the artist is already in the auction history, the market knows him, and he has at least some sales statistics.
4. For an artist who has auction prices, you need to filter the results by several parameters. In fact, you need the prices dated after 2014. The earlier ones are not good (old pre-crisis dollar prices need to be divided into two, and some into three and four). Painting needs to be compared only with painting, and not with graphics. When comparing, you need to consider the size of the paintings of one author, their style and period. In order not to mistakenly compare the price of a recognizable 100 × 80 abstraction with an early 40 × 30 landscape. The ideal scenario is to find several similar sales of very similar works over the past three years at first-class auctions. Well, if not, it is better to return to point 2.
5. What if the artist does not have published auction prices... In general, it must be accepted that the absence of auction statistics is a very alarming symptom. How did it happen that no one has exhibited his paintings so far? Yes, there are exceptions. For example, the hero of the runet Vasya Lozhkin, whose paintings are regularly banned and removed from exhibitions, also has no auction sales. Lozhkin’s paintings are sold, sometimes they cost a lot of money, but they have never been put up for auctions. Amazingly, it happens like that sometimes. At the same time, you need to understand that this is a rare case. In other situations, the artist’s lack of an auction history is bad. Other auctions are also unlikely to want to risk it and take it to bid. You can try to break this vicious circle. For example, you can try to find interesting facts about the artist’s biography, collect information about exhibitions, participation in art associations. Perhaps some of this will be able to interest and persuade auctioneers to take the work to bid. Yes, in this case you should not count on a high price. Paintings by little-known artists in practice are a segment of emotional purchases: “I bought it cheaply because I just liked it”. Usually this is a range of 10,000 — 30,000 rubles.

Of course, there are other ways to collect information about the estimated cost of the work. You can post photos and a question on art forums. You can spend time on independent Internet research (which is definitely useful). But a request for auction houses is still the easiest and most efficient way to get professional opinion from specialists who really know the market situation thoroughly. People at auctions are pragmatic, they do not indulge in naked theorizing, and do not give irresponsible promising estimates. If they know something, they will say it as it is. And we, too, are among them. So you can get a free evaluation of the picture from us at ArtSale.info auction, by contacting [email protected] or WhatsApp +7 499 398 96 99. Good luck.