How much does a work by a Belgian artist cost?

01There is no price list, and that is normal

Nobody publishes an official rate for an original artwork. No price per square metre, no table by technique, no institution that will tell you what a canvas is worth. A painting is not a product made in a series: it is a single piece, made once, by one person.

That is exactly what makes buying your first work uncomfortable. You cannot tell whether you are paying too much, and you do not dare ask. Yet an art price reads perfectly well, as long as you know what is inside it.

• What is in the price and you can see: hours of work, a canvas, paint, a stretcher, a studio that has to be heated.
• What is in the price and you forget: the years it took this person to paint like that. They are not billed by the hour.
• What is in the price and has nothing to do with the work: the share taken by the place that sells it. That is often the biggest slice, and the one nobody talks about.

A low price is not a bargain in itself, and a high price is a guarantee of nothing. You look at both the same way: what am I buying, and from whom.

02What pushes a price up or down

Four things come back every time. Once you have them in mind, two very different prices stop being baffling.

• Size. It is the trade’s first reflex: many artists start from the surface area, so that two different formats do not contradict each other in their own catalogue. A large format costs more, and it also costs more to make.
• Technique. Oil needs weeks of drying between layers. A watercolour is done in one sitting, but it forgives nothing, and mistakes cannot be painted over. The time involved is not the same, so the price is not either.
• Unique piece or edition. A painting exists in a single copy. An etching or a numbered print exists in several, and costs less as a result. That is normal - but it has to be written down, with the number of copies.
• The artist’s track record. Exhibitions, regular sales, a hand you recognise at a glance: that gets paid for, as in every trade. An artist who is starting out sells for less, and that is the right moment to buy.

What does not set the price: the frame, which is almost always added on top of the displayed amount, and the time you spent finding that particular work.

03How an artist arrives at a price

Three ways of calculating have been circulating among artists for a long time. None of them is an official rule, no institution publishes them: they are habits of the trade, and they mostly serve to stay consistent from one canvas to the next.

• By cost: materials, plus the hours worked at an hourly rate the artist sets, plus a share for the studio. It is the most honest method to start with, and the hardest to stand behind - it almost always gives a higher price than expected.
• By surface area: an amount per square centimetre, the same across a whole series. Two different formats then give two prices that hold together.
• By a coefficient: the artist adds height and width in centimetres, then multiplies by a coefficient of their own, often between 2 and 5 when starting out. It is the most widespread studio habit, and no federation publishes it. Cultuurloket, the public contact point for the sector in Belgium, teaches a completely different calculation: the time spent plus the cost of materials, with a margin.
• What that gives, plainly: a 60 × 80 cm canvas then lands between €280 and €700. A rule of thumb, not a rule - it comes from what artists say about their prices, not from a study. An established artist is well above that.

In Belgium, the real public reference is Cultuurloket, the contact point for people working in culture. It offers artists a step-by-step approach of this kind - and, precisely, it gives no price at all. It gives a method. That is the best proof that no price list exists.

Ask an artist how they arrived at their price and they will tell you. That is not haggling, it is curiosity - and the answer often teaches you more about the work than the label next to it.

04The same painting does not cost the same everywhere

This is the part nobody spells out, and yet it is the one that weighs most heavily on the figure you read.

• In a gallery: Cultuurloket puts it plainly - of a work sold through a gallery, half the price often goes to the artist and the other half to the gallery. That is not abuse: it is the price of a space in town, a hanging, insurance and an address book.
• On an online platform: commission runs from 6.5% at Etsy to 40% at Saatchi Art, and several platforms publish their rate nowhere. Some add a monthly subscription on top, paid even in the months when nothing sells.
• Directly, from the artist: nothing is taken between the two of you. It is the only place where the price asked is the price received.

That does not mean a gallery is expensive for nothing - it does a real job, and it does it well. It means a price can only be compared like for like: the same canvas, seen in two different places, has no reason to carry the same figure.

That is the choice arvel has made: no commission is taken on the artist’s work - the price they display is the price they receive. arvel earns on the other side, inside the price the client sees, with no surprise fee on the last screen. And the piece is handed over in person, so there is no transport to absorb into the price.

arvel isn’t open yet. Today the site lets you take your place on the waiting list, nothing more. We’d rather write it than let you guess.

05What gets added to the displayed price

• Transport. A large canvas travels badly: packaging, shipping, insurance. Ask who pays, and what happens if it arrives damaged. Handing the work over in person removes the question.
• The frame. It is almost never included in the price. On a canvas mounted on a stretcher it is not compulsory; on paper or a watercolour it almost is.
• Payment fees. Between 1.5 and 3% of the amount, plus around €0.25 each time. In Belgium, Bancontact is charged at a flat rate, whatever the amount. You do not pay them directly, but they always end up somewhere in the price.
• VAT. Depending on the seller’s status, it is included, added, or does not apply. That is a tax rule: to be checked case by case with the FPS Finance, and to be written on the sales document.

At a distance and from a professional seller, you have 14 days in Belgium to withdraw (FPS Economy). Between private individuals that right does not apply - many people believe the opposite. Check before you pay, by looking at who you are buying from.

06Telling whether a price is fair, in practice

• Look at the artist’s other works. If two canvases of the same size carry very different prices with no reason given, there is a question to ask.
• Ask whether it is a unique piece or an edition, and how many copies exist. The answer should come straight away.
• Ask what is supplied: the canvas alone, the stretcher, the frame, a certificate, an invoice. What is not stated is not included.
• Compare like for like: a gallery price carries the gallery’s share, a studio price does not. But do not expect half price at the studio - many artists hold the same price everywhere, so as not to undercut the gallery that backs them.
• Compare with other artists, not only this one. It is the step Cultuurloket recommends to artists themselves: look at what others ask for comparable work. It works just as well the other way round, when you are the one buying.
• And finally: do you want to look at it every day for ten years? That is the only question whose answer is not negotiable.

An original work is not an investment, and nobody serious will promise you it will gain value. What you are buying is a piece that exists only once, made by someone whose hand you can shake. For a wall, that is already a lot.