Know How to Judge the Authenticity of an Online Art Gallery

Online art galleries have made it easy for art lovers to browse art works at their leisure and convenience without the leg work. Moreover, if one is interested in buying an original art work, online fine art galleries provide a wide choice at attractive prices, with the convenience of browsing art works, making a selection and placing your order from the comfort of one’s home.

However, before making any purchase from an online fine art gallery, be sure that you are dealing with a reputed and reliable gallery which deals in authentic and original works of art.

Here are some tips that will help you to judge whether the online art gallery is good enough to deal with and prevent you from getting duped by unscrupulous shops.

Huge collection of art pieces

Make sure the online art gallery has a huge variety of art works to offer. More variety means you would get more options to choose from. For instance, if an online gallery is dealing in African tribal art, just having African masks is not enough. It must also deal in original oil paintings, jewellery items, statues and a lot more other artefacts that represent African tribal art.

Organised Showcase

Moreover, the online art gallery must have a neatly organised showcase of its collections. For instance, its not enough to just a section simply as “paintings”. A professional online art gallery will have sub categories such as wildlife paintings, abstract paintings, landscape oil paintings and so on.

Contact Information

Any reliable online art dealer must put an authentic contact address on their website. You should be able to contact the dealer physically and not just over e-mails. In the website if you don’t find the address of the office, then it is better not to deal with them.

Shipping & Delivery
Check the specific “Shipping & Delivery” section of the online art gallery to get an idea whether the orders can be shipped to any place or if the company delivers only to certain areas. Also check whether the gallery is dealing with reliable and professional shipping companies or not.

Insurance
Make sure that the art pieces you plan to order are insured against loss or damage during shipping and the online art gallery provides an assurance that it would replace a damaged work with a fresh work or would return your money.

Payment Options
Check if the online art gallery offers a range of payment options. Ideally, a reliable gallery must accept all major credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express along with the most popular debit cards.

Hidden charges
The dealer must make it clear what charges he would levy on the purchase. There must not be any hidden charges. If there are any additional charges apart from the price of the art piece and the shipping charges, it must be mentioned right at the beginning. And if there are some extra charges, the dealer must be able to answer what they are charging for.

Testimonials
Study the testimonials posted on the site of the fine art gallery to get an idea about the experiences of previous buyers. At times, you can get to know the address and phone numbers of some buyers whom you can contact personally to have an idea about the way the online art gallery functions. If the buyers respond positively and are satisfied with their services, you can consider purchasing from the online gallery.

Article Source: http://myarticlezine.com

Tony Chalmers is a journalist and an art aficionado who has written several insightful articles on different art styles and paintings be it original paintings, or reproduced ones. He himself is a proud owner of some beautiful original landscape oil paintings which he got from an online art gallery.

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