How to Value Your Artwork: A Complete Guide
By Otieno Odhiambo · 25 June 2026 · 1 min read
There's no formula that spits out a number — a real valuation combines your own documentation, comparable sales where they exist, and, for anything of real value, an independent professional.
Valuing your own artwork honestly starts with admitting what you can and can't determine yourself — and knowing when the number actually needs to come from someone else.
What you can establish yourself
Gather what you actually have: the original purchase invoice or receipt, any correspondence from the artist, photographs of the work and its condition, and the exhibition or ownership history as far as you know it. This isn't a valuation yet — it's the raw material any real valuation, yours or a professional's, will be built from.
What a self-assessment is actually good for
A rough self-assessment — checking recent, genuinely comparable sales by the same or similar artists — is useful for your own planning: insurance ballpark, a sense of whether to consider selling, a donation-tier decision. It is not the kind of number that should appear on a tax filing or an insurance claim without independent backing.
When you actually need a professional
Four moments where a self-assessment isn't enough: donating an in-kind gift of any real value (our coverage of Kenya's donation rules explains why the valuation gap matters there specifically), insuring a work, settling an estate, or selling through any channel that requires a stated value upfront. In each case, an independent professional valuer's number is what survives scrutiny; your own is what doesn't.
The honest bottom line
Do the documentation work yourself — it's free, it's useful regardless, and no professional can do it retroactively as well as you can while the details are fresh. Bring in a professional for the number that actually needs to hold up.
— The ArtCollect Desk