Living with the work
Moving house with an oil painting
8 min read ▪ 30 August 2026
Home › Notes from the studio › Living with the work › Moving house with an oil painting
More paintings are damaged in the four days around a move than in the twenty years either side. Willem van der Krieken on the three ways it happens.
How do you move an oil painting?
Nothing touches the paint, nothing lies flat, and nothing goes face to face. Paper or glassine against the surface first, corner protectors, board front and back, and only then bubble wrap on the outside with the bubbles facing out. Travel it upright, wedged so it cannot slide. And keep the box it arrived in, because it is better than anything you can buy.
- Bubble wrap directly against paint leaves a pattern in it, and warmth makes it permanent.
- A canvas laid flat becomes a shelf within a day. Somebody always puts a box on it.
- Let it come up to room temperature wrapped before you unwrap it.
The three ways it goes wrong
It is almost always one of these, and all three happen on the day rather than on the road.
Bubble wrap straight onto the paint. The obvious move, and the wrong one. Polyethylene against an oil surface in a warm van will print the bubble pattern into the paint film, and on a surface that is still hardening — which every oil painting is, for decades — that impression does not lift out. It is the single most common way a painting is damaged in a house move.
Flat, under other things. A canvas laid flat is a horizontal surface in a room full of people carrying boxes, and it will have a box on it within the hour. The stretcher bars press into the canvas from behind and leave a mark in the exact shape of the frame, which is visible in raking light for the rest of the painting's life.
Two canvases face to face. Space-efficient, and it puts one paint surface against another with the vibration of a van underneath them. Always face to back, or with a rigid board between.
The damage, side by side
| What happens | What it leaves | Can it be undone |
|---|---|---|
| Bubble wrap against the paint | The bubble pattern printed into the paint film | No |
| Laid flat with a box on it | A mark in the shape of the stretcher, visible in raking light | No |
| Two canvases face to face | Abrasion across both surfaces | No |
| Tape on the canvas or the stretcher | Lifted paint or torn canvas where it is pulled off | Only by a conservator |
| Unwrapped straight out of a cold van | Condensation on the back of the canvas | Yes, if you catch it. Waiting a day prevents it |
Wrapping it, in order
Five layers, and the order is the whole of it. Ten minutes per painting.
- 1. Paper against the surface. Glassine if you have it, acid-free tissue or clean plain paper if you do not. Never newsprint, because ink transfers. This layer exists so that nothing else ever touches the paint.
- 2. Corner protectors. Cardboard corners, or folded card. Corners are what a canvas lands on and they are what get crushed.
- 3. Rigid board front and back. Two pieces of cardboard cut slightly larger than the canvas. This is what stops something being pushed through the canvas, and a stretched canvas has no other defence against a point load.
- 4. Bubble wrap on the outside, bubbles facing out. Bubbles out means the smooth side is against the board and the padding does its job without printing anything into anything.
- 5. Tape the outer layer only. Never tape to the canvas, the stretcher or the paint, and never tape a wrapped painting so tightly it cannot breathe.
Label the outside with which way is up and the words painting, do not lay flat, in marker, on both faces. That instruction is for people who are not you, and on moving day everybody carrying it is somebody who is not you.
In the van
Upright, on its long edge, standing on something soft — a folded blanket or a piece of foam — and wedged so it cannot slide or fall over when the van corners.
Against a flat surface, not against a wheel arch or a ratchet strap. Away from the doors, because the doors are where things get leaned. And not directly against the metal skin of the van in cold weather: metal is the coldest surface in there, and condensation forms on cold surfaces.
If it can travel in a car rather than the van, it should. A canvas at these sizes goes upright on a back seat with a seatbelt through it. The largest work in this collection is 120 × 100 cm and it is stretched canvas on a wooden frame, so it is bulky rather than heavy — a two-hand carry, not a two-person lift.
The box it arrived in
If you still have the packaging the painting was delivered in, use that and skip most of this article. It was built for that exact canvas, it has the corner protection already, and it survived a courier network once.
Which is the argument for keeping it in the first place. It costs a flat, dry corner of a loft or a wardrobe and it is the cheapest insurance available for an object you intend to own for decades — not just for a house move, but for a repair, a loan, a photograph, or the day you sell it. How the painting is packed and shipped describes what that box is.
Flat and dry matters: cardboard that has spent a winter in a damp garage is no longer rigid, and a soft box protects nothing.
At the other end
Bring it inside and leave it wrapped. A painting that has spent six hours in a cold van and comes straight into a heated room will collect condensation on the cold surface, and the cold surface may be the back of the canvas. Leave it wrapped, standing upright in the room where it will hang, for a day. That is the single most useful thing in this article and it costs nothing but patience.
Then unwrap it the same day. Wrapped paintings get left wrapped, and a painting behind plastic in a spare room for three months is a humidity problem you built yourself, for the reason set out in the bathroom article.
Choose the wall before you hang it, not after. A new house is the one moment when the decision is genuinely free: no existing hooks, no history, no compromise inherited from the last owner. Which room has a verdict on each, which walls to avoid rules out the ones that damage it, and wall types and fixings covers what to put in the wall once you know which one it is.
Removal firms, storage and the things to say no to
Removal crews are good at furniture and are not art handlers, and the difference shows up in exactly one place: they will wrap a painting in a moving blanket and tape the blanket, quickly and with the best intentions, and the tape will be on the canvas.
Wrap the paintings yourself, before the crew arrives, and hand them over already boxed and labelled. That converts a fragile object into a rigid rectangle with instructions on it, which is a thing removal crews handle extremely well.
Two more, briefly. Do not put a painting in an unheated garage or a self-storage unit for months — unheated spaces swing in temperature and humidity far more than any room in a house, and time in one of those is worse than the move ever was. And if the painting is worth insuring, check whether your policy covers it in transit, because a lot of contents cover does not.
None of this is difficult. It is ten minutes of paper and cardboard against a risk you only run every few years — and it is the same ten minutes whether the canvas is the 50 × 30 cm Natalee (White Top) or the largest work in the collection.
Questions people ask
How do you wrap an oil painting for moving?
Paper or glassine against the surface first, then corner protectors, then rigid board front and back, then bubble wrap on the outside with the bubbles facing out. Tape only the outer layer. The order is the point: nothing except paper ever touches the paint.
Can you put bubble wrap directly on a painting?
No. In a warm van, polyethylene against an oil surface prints the bubble pattern into the paint film, and on a surface that is still hardening that impression does not lift out. It is the commonest way a painting is damaged in a house move.
Should a painting travel flat or upright?
Upright, on its long edge, standing on something soft and wedged so it cannot slide. A canvas laid flat becomes a surface for other boxes, and the stretcher bars then press into the canvas from behind and leave a permanent mark in the shape of the frame.
What should I do when it arrives at the new house?
Bring it in, leave it wrapped, and stand it upright in the room where it will hang for a day. That lets it reach room temperature without condensation forming on the cold surface. Then unwrap it the same day, because wrapped paintings get left wrapped.
