How to Identify an Artist’s Signature on a Painting — and Look It Up

Found a painting at an estate sale, an attic, or a flea market? The signature is usually your fastest clue to who made it — and whether it’s worth a closer look. But artists sign in maddeningly different ways. Here’s how to find a signature, read it, look it up, and sanity-check what you find.

Where to look first

Scan the lower corners first — that’s where most painters sign, often in paint that blends into the scene. Then check the other corners, along the edges, and even within the image (some artists tuck a signature into a shadow or object). Raking light from the side helps faint or same-color signatures stand out.

Don’t forget the back

The verso (back) is a goldmine. Look for a signature, a title, a date, gallery or framer labels, exhibition stickers, and inventory numbers. On older works, stretcher stamps and auction lot labels can identify the piece even when the front signature is unclear. Not every name on the back is the artist’s, though — previous owners sometimes wrote theirs there too.

A clue on the back — a gallery label or an old auction sticker — can be worth more than the signature itself for tracing a work’s history.

Reading hard-to-decipher signatures

Many signatures are just initials or a stylized monogram. Transcribe what you can letter by letter, note any date, and search the exact spelling. Be careful: a signature alone doesn’t prove authorship — names get forged, and many works are "after" or "in the style of" a known artist.

How to look up an artist signature

Before you search, write down what you have: the letters you are sure of, the ones you are guessing, any date, and whether it is a full name, initials or a monogram. Signature databases are searched by those letters — some let you use a wildcard for the part you can’t read (Dav*, *cas*) — and the best-known ones are built from auction catalogues and original works.

Price databases such as artnet and MutualArt search by artist name, not by signature — they come in after you have a name, to see what that artist’s work sells for (how much is my painting worth).

Can you identify a signature from a photo?

Partly. FindArtInfo matches an uploaded photo against its own signature images, but by its own testing a photo alone put the right artist first only about one time in twenty — so it advises typing in any letters you can read as well. Google Lens isn’t documented as a signature tool: it can read a legible signature as text you can search, and it can find pages that show the same or a similar painting, which may name the artist if the work has been published.

A photo of the whole painting often tells you more than a photo of the signature alone, because the style, subject and medium narrow the field before the handwriting does.

Watch for red flags

• A signature that sits on top of varnish or grime instead of under it — often added later.
• A famous name that looks too neat or "stamped."
• A signature that doesn’t match the artist’s known style or dates.
• Prints and reproductions can carry a printed "signature" — check whether the paint is actually raised and real.

These aren’t hypothetical. In 2009 the FBI recovered a watercolor bearing Andrew Wyeth’s signature that Wyeth himself had said was not his, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington catalogues one of its own portraits as "falsely signed" with John Smibert’s name. Under ultraviolet light a conservator can see whether a signature lies beneath the old varnish or on top of it — letters on top were added later. Treat that as a reason to look closer, not a verdict.

From signature to identity

A database match gives you a candidate, not an answer. Test it: do the style, medium and date fit what that artist made? Is the work in the artist’s catalogue raisonné — the scholarly list of their known works, which a library catalogue such as WorldCat can help you find? If the name has a market, send photos of the front, the back and a close-up of the signature to an auction house: Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Heritage all give free estimates from photos. An estimate is still an opinion — Heritage says outright that it is not proof of authenticity. No signature at all? Work from the labels, materials and style instead (how to identify an unsigned painting).

Check first

Lower corners, then all edges

Then check

The back: labels, stamps, numbers

Decode

Monograms and dates, letter by letter

Look it up

Signature databases, by letters or a cropped photo

Be skeptical

Signatures over varnish; "too perfect" names

The takeaway

A signature is the thread you pull to unravel a painting’s identity — but check the back, weigh the style, and stay skeptical of names that look too good. Find it, decode it, look it up and verify it, and an anonymous canvas can start to tell you exactly where it came from.

At a glance

Signature red flags and what they suggest

What you see	Possible meaning
Signature crosses over cracks without cracking	Added after the paint aged
Fluoresces differently under UV	Later addition
Too perfect or too prominent for the artist	Copied from a reference
Different paint or color from the picture	Added by another hand
“Signed” vs “bears signature” in a catalogue	The auction house doesn’t vouch for it

Frequently asked questions

Where do artists usually sign paintings?

Most sign lower right, some lower left; others sign on the back, on the stretcher, or hide a monogram in the image.

Is there a database of artist signatures?

Several. FindArtInfo searches signatures and monograms taken from auction catalogues by name, initials or a cropped photo; ArtistsSignatures.com searches by name or by the letters of a monogram; the Art Signature Dictionary searches by name; the Benezit Dictionary of Artists includes over 11,000 signature images. Searching is often free, but seeing the signature images usually takes a paid plan — or, for Benezit, a library subscription.

Can Google Lens identify an artist’s signature?

It is not documented as a signature tool. Lens can read a legible signature as text you can search, and it can find pages showing the same or a similar painting, which may name the artist if the work has been published. For a scrawl or a monogram, a signature database works better.

What if I can’t read the signature?

Photograph it at high resolution, write down the letters you are sure of, and search them with wildcards or as a monogram. If nothing matches, send photos of the front, the back and the signature to an auction house for a free estimate, or pay a specialist to decipher it.

Does an unsigned painting have value?

It can. Many historic works were never signed, and value depends on attribution, quality and provenance.

What does “bears signature” mean?

In auction cataloguing it means a signature is present but the house is not confident it is the artist’s own.

Sources and further reading

1. Identify an artist signature — FindArtInfo
2. Artists’ Signatures — search and monogram look-up — ArtistsSignatures.com
3. About the Art Signature Dictionary — Art Signature Dictionary
4. Benezit Dictionary of Artists — Oxford Art Online
5. Artists’ signatures (research guide) — Getty Research Institute Library
6. Signatures, Monograms, and Markings — Smithsonian American Art Museum
7. Search with an image on Google — Google Search Help
8. FBI recovers watercolor bearing Andrew Wyeth’s signature (press release, 1 October 2009) — FBI Baltimore
9. British 18th Century, Portrait of a Gentleman (1947.17.94) — National Gallery of Art, Washington
10. Signature under ultraviolet light (image 1571) — Frederick Ferdinand Schafer Painting Catalog
11. Request an estimate — Christie’s
12. Free auction evaluation — Heritage Auctions
13. Art forgery — Wikipedia
14. Provenance — Wikipedia

Links checked October 31, 2026.

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