Valuing Art with No Signature: The Claim Case of Maxfield Parrish

In determining the value of a painting, a number of factors must be considered, including the artist, provenance, the quality of work, period (date), and condition. In many instances we value paintings whose style and date of creation matches those of well-known artists though they lack signatures. High quality works produced in a specific period that cannot be directly connected to an individual artist by a signature or significant provenance, though created in the same style of an artist, are considered school or genre paintings.

For example, many drawings in the market which cannot be attributed to Rembrandt yet have all the physical attributes of a Rembrandt are sold as “school of Rembrandt.” While an unsigned painting by a particular artist would have less value than a signed example by that very same artist, unsigned genre paintings do not command the highest prices in the marketplace.