Buying your first original: what nobody tells you

Almost every first purchase goes wrong in the same way: the work is too small. On a screen, scale is invisible. In a room, a piece that looked substantial arrives as a postage stamp on a wall that swallows it.

The usable rule is that a work should occupy roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of the width of whatever it hangs above — a sofa, a console, a bed. Above nothing, on an open wall, it should read clearly from the far side of the room. Measure the wall, mark the dimensions in tape, and live with the rectangle for a day before buying.

The second surprise is framing. A frame is not a finishing touch; it is between a fifth and a half of what you will spend, and it changes the work. Ask whether the price includes framing, whether the work is stretched or rolled, and whether glazing is included. Works on paper need glazing with UV protection. Works on canvas usually do not need glass at all.

Third: light. Direct sunlight will fade almost anything given enough years — watercolour and works on paper fastest, oil more slowly. Hanging opposite a window is generally safer than beside one, and a wall that gets two hours of direct afternoon sun in summer is not a wall for anything you intend to keep.

The questions worth asking before you commit are unglamorous. Is it unique or an edition, and if an edition, how large? Is it signed, and where? What is the condition — any restoration, any losses? What does it weigh and how does it fix? Can it be returned, and who pays the freight if so?

A seller who answers these plainly is a seller worth buying from. A seller who deflects toward how much the work has appreciated is selling you an asset class, not a painting.

Finally, the only advice that actually matters: buy the piece you keep thinking about a week later. Investment logic is a poor guide to a market this illiquid, and the thing you will live with every day should be the thing that keeps pulling at you.