Papers, framing, canvas, and how a print ages.
Every order is produced to order by Prodigi, our fine-art fulfilment partner: giclée pigment ink on enhanced matte and Hahnemühle cotton-rag papers, plus framed prints and stretched canvas for the same images. Which of these a given work offers is not a fixed menu — we match each piece to the materials and sizes that suit it, so the buy box reads differently from one artwork to the next.
How a material is matched to a work
We do not offer every material on every artwork. Two things decide what a given work shows. The first is what the picture is: a painterly oil reads best on canvas, where the weave sits close to the texture of the original surface; a drawing, etching, or watercolour reads best on paper, often with a mat that lends a worked-on-paper image room to breathe. The second is what the museum source file can carry: the heavier and most demanding presentations need more pixels than most files hold, so they appear only on the works whose source images are large enough.
The result is a buy box that is specific to each piece rather than a catalogue dump. A small woodcut might offer paper and a framed-and-mounted option; a high-resolution landscape might add canvas and the larger formats; an image-wrapped canvas appears only where the file is big enough to continue cleanly around the edge. The sections below explain each material and the kind of work it suits, so the choice in any buy box makes sense at a glance. Scale and the resolution behind it are covered in full in the size guide.
The standard paper
Enhanced matte art paper is a 200gsm acid-free stock with a smooth matte coating. The weight gives the sheet enough body to lie flat in a frame without buckling, and the matte surface diffuses reflections instead of bouncing them back, so the image stays readable from an angle and under direct light. Matte coatings hold fine detail well, which suits reproduction work: brushwork, engraved lines, and paper texture in the source image survive the translation. It is the one material every buyable work offers, and the natural entry point for most prints.
A matte surface trades a little maximum density against a gloss paper — the deepest blacks are slightly lighter than on a glossy photo stock. For paintings, drawings, and prints this is usually the right trade: the original objects are themselves matte, and a glossy reproduction of an oil painting reads as a photograph of a painting rather than the painting.
The cotton-rag papers
Two heavier papers are offered alongside the standard matte stock, both from Hahnemühle, a German mill that has made artists' paper since 1584. German Etching is a 310gsm 100% cotton-rag paper with a pronounced felt texture, originally a printmaking stock; the tooth catches the ink and suits etchings, engravings, and drawings where the surface of the original mattered. Photo Rag is a 308gsm 100% cotton-rag paper with a smooth, very slightly textured surface that holds a wider tonal range, which favours paintings with deep shadow detail.
Cotton-rag papers contain no wood pulp and no optical brightening agents, so they do not yellow or shift in colour temperature the way a brightened paper can over decades. The extra weight also changes how the sheet behaves in the hand and in a frame: 308–310gsm sits flatter and feels closer to the original sheet a printmaker would have used. The trade is cost — the cotton stock and the slower handling carry a higher price than the standard matte paper.
What giclée means
Giclée (from the French gicler, to spray) refers to inkjet printing with pigment inks on archival substrates at high resolution. The term has no legal definition — its value depends entirely on the equipment, color profiles, and quality control of the studio doing the printing. That is why production runs through Prodigi, a dedicated fine-art print laboratory, rather than a general-purpose photo printer: profiled printers and consistent stock are what make one print match the next.
Pigment inks versus dye inks
The difference is chemical, not marketing. Dye inks use colorants dissolved in liquid; they soak into the paper fibers and produce vivid, saturated color, but the molecules break down when exposed to light and ozone. Pigment inks suspend microscopic solid particles in a binder; the particles sit on the surface of the paper and are far more resistant to fading and environmental degradation.
Under standardized accelerated-aging tests, pigment inks on archival paper are typically rated for decades of display before noticeable fading, where dye inks on the same stock fade within years. Pigment inksets also reach deeper into the blues and reds that dominate nineteenth-century painting, which keeps an ultramarine sky or a crimson robe from flattening in reproduction.
What no print process can do
No printing process reproduces every color the human eye can see. Highly saturated passages — the most intense cadmiums in a Van Gogh, the acid greens of the Fauves — lose some chroma in any reproduction. Color management compresses out-of-gamut colors toward their nearest printable neighbor while preserving the luminosity structure of the image, so the relationships within the picture hold even where a single hue cannot be matched exactly.
Framed prints
A framed print arrives ready to hang: the giclée print is mounted behind glazing in a solid-wood frame, assembled to order. Five frame finishes are offered — black, white, natural, antique gold, and antique silver — and the frame ships with the print as one order, so there is no separate framing step at home. A mounted option adds a window mount (a bevel-cut card border) between the print and the glazing, which sets the image back from the glass and gives a deeper, gallery-style presentation.
The finish is part of the match. An antique-gold or antique-silver moulding suits the ornate register of Old Master and Baroque works; black and natural sit quietly under modern, graphic, or minimal pieces; the window mount suits works on paper, drawings, and watercolours, where a card border lends presence, while oils and larger compositions often read better framed plain or carried on canvas. Framing is also the single largest factor in how long a print lasts on the wall: the glazing shields the paper from dust and handling, and a shaded position protects it from the light that fades any print ahead of its rating. Frame choices by image and room are covered on the framing page, and frame sizes follow the same scale guidance as unframed prints in the size guide.
Canvas
Canvas is the same pigment-ink image printed on a poly-cotton canvas weave and stretched over a wooden bar frame, finished without glazing. The result reads as a surface rather than a sheet behind glass: there is no reflection to manage, and the weave of the canvas sits closer to the texture of a painted original than a smooth paper does. That is why canvas is matched to painterly works — oils and the looser, impasto-heavy passages of nineteenth-century painting — rather than to fine line drawings, which lose their crispness on a textured weave. A stretched canvas hangs straight from the bars, so it needs no frame to go on the wall, though a floater frame can be added later. Canvas is made and shipped from our partner's UK facility, so it carries a slightly longer lead time than the US-made papers and frames.
The edge is a choice. A mirror wrap reflects the border pixels around the sides, and a solid black or white wrap fills the edges with a flat colour — both keep the full image on the face. An image wrap continues the picture itself around the edge, which needs a higher-resolution source file to avoid softening, so it is offered only where the original file is large enough. Because canvas is a different surface, the matching size steps differ slightly from paper; the size guide lists the canvas dimensions.
Why the premium and large formats are deliberately uncommon
The cotton-rag papers, the larger sizes, framed-and-mounted presentations, and the image-wrapped canvas are not offered on every work, and that is by design. Some of it is taste — the right surface for the picture — and some of it is physics: our museum source files are most often around 2,048 pixels on the long edge, and the heavier formats need more resolution than most masters hold. Rather than upscale a file to fake a size or push a glossy surface onto a work that does not suit it, we reserve the premium and large presentations for the works whose source images and subject genuinely carry them. When you see a piece offered at statement scale on a heavier paper, it is because that particular work earned the option — not because the catalogue offers it to everything.
Keeping a print well
Paper is durable when treated like the museum object it reproduces: away from direct sunlight, away from humidity swings, and behind glazing once framed. A print hung in direct sun without UV-filtering glazing will fade ahead of any rating; the same print on a shaded wall will outlast its frame. Handling and environmental guidance is on the care page, and scale guidance is in the size guide.
Questions
What papers do you print on?
Three archival fine-art papers: a 200gsm enhanced matte art paper as standard, and two 100% cotton-rag papers from Hahnemühle — German Etching at 310gsm and Photo Rag at 308gsm. All are acid-free; the cotton-rag stocks carry no optical brightening agents, so they do not yellow over decades.
What does giclée mean?
Giclée is high-resolution inkjet printing with pigment inks on archival substrates, run through profiled printers and consistent stock. We use pigment inks rather than dye inks because pigment particles sit on the paper surface and resist fading far longer under standardized accelerated-aging tests.
How is the canvas made?
The same pigment-ink image is printed on a poly-cotton canvas weave and stretched over a wooden bar frame, finished without glazing. Four edge treatments are offered — mirror wrap, solid black, solid white, and image wrap. Image wrap continues the picture around the edge and needs a larger source file, so it is offered only where the master is big enough.
Are the frames real wood?
Yes. Framed prints are assembled to order in a solid-wood moulding behind glazing, in five finishes: black, white, natural, antique gold, and antique silver. The framed-and-mounted option adds a conservation window mount between the print and the glazing.
Why do different artworks offer different materials and sizes?
We match each work to the formats that flatter it and that its museum source file can carry. Painterly oils suit canvas; drawings, etchings, and watercolours suit paper and a mat; the larger and most demanding materials are reserved for higher-resolution works. So each work shows only the materials and sizes that suit it — the buy box is the authoritative list.