Buying erotic art
Buying your first original painting
7 min read ▪ 30 August 2026
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Nobody explains this part, because everyone who sells art assumes you have done it before. Willem van der Krieken writes down what a first-time buyer is entitled to know.
What should I know before buying my first original painting?
Four things. An original here costs between €250 and €900, and the ladder tracks size. What arrives is a stretched canvas, ready to hang, with a certificate. The certificate proves origin, not value. And there are five questions you are entitled to ask any artist before you order.
- None of this is specialist. It is a physical object, bought from the person who made it.
- Most people who buy work like this own almost no other art. That is the normal case here, not the exception.
- More than 350 signed prints have gone from this studio across nine editions, so a first purchase is the standard purchase.
What an original costs
Between €250 and €900 for the twenty-three canvases in this studio. That is a narrow band by the standards of original art, and it is worth seeing laid out, because the first thing a first-time buyer wants to know is whether the number in front of them is normal.
| Price | Size (height × width) | Example |
|---|---|---|
| €250 | 50 × 30 cm | Natalee (White Top) |
| €500 | 70 × 50 cm | Natalee (Blue Light) |
| €600–650 | 80 × 60 cm | Deelee (Golden Girl) |
| €700–750 | 100 × 80 cm | Lindsey (The Mirror) |
| €900 | 100 × 100 to 120 × 100 cm | Riae (Orange Van) |
Every canvas takes several weeks, worked in blocks of days. The ladder tracks size. There is no edition, no variant and no second size: one painting, one price, and when it is sold there is not another one behind it.
If that band is above where you want to start, the other rung is €35 — a signed print, which is a different object rather than a smaller version of the same one. That comparison is original or signed print, and which you should buy.
What actually arrives
A box, and in the box a painting on its stretcher, flat, ready to hang. Not rolled, not folded, not requiring assembly. A signed print travels differently — rolled in a tube — but a canvas arrives as the finished object.
With it: a certificate of authenticity. Everything ships insured, worldwide, from the Netherlands.
On the outside of the box there is a sticker with the studio name, Paintings by Willem van der Krieken, and nothing else that identifies what is inside. No title, no subject, no image. The customs description reads painting, because a customs declaration has to say what an object is. That is deliberately unspecific and it is as far as honesty allows — the full account is in how your painting is packed and shipped, and what the box says.
One thing worth doing in the first hour, because more paintings are damaged by the person opening the parcel than by the courier: open the box flat on a table or the floor, cut only the tape, and lift the canvas by the stretcher bars at the sides rather than by the front. Then look at it in daylight before you decide anything. Oil paint under a hallway bulb is not the painting.
What a certificate is, and what it is not
A certificate of authenticity is a statement from the maker: this object is what it is said to be, it was made by this person, it is this thing and not a copy of it. It travels with the work and it is what a future owner will want to see.
It is not three other things, and the difference matters more than the document does.
It is not a valuation. Nothing on it says what the painting is worth, now or later, and a certificate that did say so would be a warning rather than a reassurance.
It is not independent. A certificate is only as good as whoever signed it. From the studio that made the object it is a very short chain: one person, one canvas, one signature. From a reseller who has never seen the work, it is a printed page.
It is not what makes the painting original. The painting is original because of how it was made. The certificate records that; it does not confer it. If a seller leads with the certificate rather than with the object, ask about the object.
Why it does not need a frame
This surprises most first-time buyers, who have budgeted for one.
These canvases are stretched over wooden bars and arrive that way. The edges are part of the object — on some works the paint runs over the sides, and on Veronika (American Girl) the edges are painted deliberately. A frame would cover exactly the part that tells you the thing was made by hand.
So a canvas hangs straight on the wall, and the money you were going to spend on framing is not a saving so much as a decision that was never yours to make. Paper is the opposite case: a print needs glass and a mount, and a good frame for one can cost more than the print did.
What to do with the canvas once it is on the wall — height, spacing, light — is in how to display erotic art at home.
Five questions worth asking any artist
None of these is rude, and all five are answered in a sentence by anyone who actually made the work. The reply time is as informative as the reply.
| Ask | Why you are asking | The answer here |
|---|---|---|
| Where was it made? | A studio has an address. A print operation has a platform. | Boekel, in the Netherlands. |
| What is it made of, exactly? | Vagueness about medium is never accidental. | Acrylic underpainting, finished in oil, on stretched canvas. |
| How long did it take? | Time is the one input a printer cannot fake. | Several weeks, worked in blocks of days. |
| Is there a photograph of the back? | Stretcher bars, staples and the canvas fold. Nobody photographs this except the person who made it. | Ask and you get one. |
| What happens if it arrives damaged? | You want the procedure before you need it, not after. | Shipments are insured; photograph the box before you finish opening it, and get in touch straight away. The full procedure is in the packing and shipping article. |
A sixth question is optional and tells you more than the other five together: ask something specific about the painting itself. What the edges look like, what is underneath a particular colour, why it stopped when it did. A studio answers in a couple of days with a specific answer. A catalogue of a hundred thousand items answers in ninety seconds with a template. That test, and six others, are in where to buy erotic art online without ending up on a print farm.
If €500 for a 70 × 50 cm canvas is the shape of a sensible first purchase, Natalee (Blue Light) is that. If you would rather start at the other end, the whole series is here and none of it is going to be explained to you in a language you do not speak.
The originals, the signed prints and the commissions are listed together, with what each of them costs, on erotic art for sale.
Questions people ask
Is buying an original painting complicated?
No. It is a physical object bought from the person who made it, and it arrives stretched and ready to hang with a certificate. There is no specialist vocabulary you are expected to have, no auction process, and no minimum. Most people buying here own almost no other art, which makes a first purchase the ordinary case rather than an unusual one.
What does an original oil painting cost?
In this studio, between €250 and €900, and the ladder tracks size: €250 for 50 × 30 cm, around €700 to €750 for 100 × 80 cm, and €900 for the largest canvases at 120 × 100 cm. Every canvas takes several weeks and exists once, so there is no edition and no second size at a lower price.
What is a certificate of authenticity actually worth?
It is worth exactly as much as the person who signed it. A certificate is a statement of origin from the maker, and it travels with the work for the next owner. It is not a valuation, it is not independent verification, and it is not what makes a painting original. If a seller leads with the certificate rather than the object, ask about the object.
Does an original painting need a frame?
Not these. They are stretched over wooden bars, arrive ready to hang, and on several works the paint runs over the sides — a frame would cover the part that shows it was made by hand. Paper is the other case: a signed print needs glass and a mount, and framing one can cost more than the print.
