Original or print?

Three things can hang on a wall and look alike from across the room. Up close, and with the right questions, they are easy to separate.

1. The three kinds

A unique work. There is only one: a painting, a drawing, a watercolour, a collage.
An original print. The artist made the image to be printed, from a plate, stone, block, screen or file, and the sheets were pulled by the artist or under their eye. Each sheet is an original, though there are several.
A reproduction. A machine-printed copy of a work that already exists in another form: most posters, offset prints, and inkjet copies of paintings.

The second and third can use the same machines. The difference is intent. An original print is the work. A reproduction is a picture of the work.

2. The words on the label

Etching, engraving, drypoint: lines cut or bitten into a metal plate. The plate is pressed into the paper, and often leaves a plate mark, a slight dent around the image.
Lithograph: drawn on stone or a plate with greasy ink. Chromolithograph means a colour lithograph, one stone per colour.
Oleograph: a chromolithograph varnished or embossed to look like an oil painting, often mounted on canvas. The Ravi Varma Press printed them in thousands.
Woodcut, linocut: cut into wood or lino; the raised parts print.
Screenprint, serigraph: the same thing. Ink is pushed through a fine mesh. “Serigraph” is the name used for art prints. It is also the word on most of the Husain, Raza and Souza “serigraphs” new buyers are offered, many of them reproductions.
Giclée: a word coined around 1991 for fine inkjet printing, from a French word for a nozzle or jet. It describes the machine, not the status of the print.

3. The pencil in the margin

Original prints are usually signed in pencil below the image, and numbered.

12/50: sheet twelve of an edition of fifty. Lower numbers are not better.
A/P: artist’s proof, reserved for the artist and not counted in the edition. By convention there are not usually more than a tenth as many as the edition, though there can be twenty or more.
P/P: printer’s proof, taken to check the printing or kept by the printer.
Trial proof: an impression pulled while the plate or stone was still being worked on.

A signature printed into the image, rather than written on top of it in pencil, is part of the reproduction.

4. Look closely

Take a loupe, or the magnifier on your phone.

A grid or rosette of tiny round dots is the mark of halftone printing, the method behind most posters, books and offset reproductions.
A fine, even spray of dots with no pattern usually means inkjet.
Ink that sits on top of the paper with a slight ridge, or a plate mark pressed into the sheet, points to a hand-pulled print.
Brushstrokes that stop exactly at the edge of the image, with no paint on the paper beyond, can mean a textured reproduction.

None of this is proof on its own. Texture can be added, and dots can be hidden. Use it to decide which questions to ask.

5. Questions to ask

Who made the image, and did they make it to be printed?
Who printed it, where, and when?
How large was the edition, and how many proofs were pulled outside it?
Does it copy a painting or drawing that exists elsewhere?
Will the seller put the answers on the invoice?

A seller who knows the answers will give them easily. One who calls a reproduction “a limited-edition original” has told you what you need to know.

What does 12/50 written on a print mean?

It is the twelfth sheet of an edition of fifty. The number counts the sheets; it does not rank them.

What is an A/P?

An artist's proof: a sheet printed alongside an edition but outside its numbered count, traditionally kept by the artist.

Is a giclée an original print?

Giclée only means an inkjet print. It is an original print when the artist made the inkjet image as the work itself, and a reproduction when it copies a painting.

Is a Ravi Varma oleograph a painting?

No. An oleograph is a colour lithograph varnished or embossed to look like an oil painting. Old ones are collected in their own right, as prints.

How can I check a print without an expert?

Look at it under a magnifying loupe. A regular grid or rosette of tiny dots usually means a machine reproduction. Then ask how it was made, who printed it, and whether it copies another work.