In the digital copies held by museums and archives, a painting often bears the marks of centuries: cracks in the paint, stains, and worn edges. These marks are hardly noticeable in a small image on a screen. But when the painting is enlarged to cover an entire wall, they all become apparent. That's why every print in our store undergoes a lengthy preparation process.
How We Prepare a Print
The preparation begins with finding the right file. Dozens of copies of a famous painting circulate online: copies with distorted colors, cropped edges or low resolution, and sometimes even another version of the same work, painted by the artist's own hand. For each artwork, we search through files from museums, archives, and public collections, selecting the largest and most accurate file we can find.
Then we go over the whole image in Photoshop, area by area. We repair cracks, stains, and damage one by one, remaining faithful to the original. We strive not to alter what the artist created, but only to remove the damage left by time. After each repair, we compare the file side by side with the original.
We prepare the file for the largest size in the store. But each size has a different aspect ratio: a frame that's nearly square won't crop the painting in the same way as a tall frame. That's why we crop every size separately. We work to keep faces, figures and the heart of the composition from being cut off at the edge. When the ratio changes, losing part of the edge is sometimes unavoidable. Then someone who knows the painting decides which part goes.
Your print is made to order, usually at the partner studio nearest to you. We offer most works in several formats, from paper prints to framed canvases. Shipping is free on prints, frames and most canvases, and our Shipping Policy lists production and delivery times for each format and the countries we deliver to.
We Stand Behind What We Sell
We stand behind every print we sell. If your print arrives damaged, defective or not what you ordered, email us within 7 days of delivery with photos of the print and its packaging, and we'll send a free replacement or refund your money. If a package is confirmed lost in transit, we'll reprint and resend it at no cost. The details are in our Refund Policy and Shipping Policy.
Who We Are
Since 2016, archaeologyart has been sharing stories about art and archaeology on social media. Today, over one million people follow these stories on Instagram, and 800,000 on X. There's research behind our posts: we read the artwork's museum records and the texts written about it, and we strive to explain what a painting is about in a way that even someone seeing it for the first time can understand. We do the same on the product pages in our store, briefly describing what each work is about.
We do this work as a small team. Our members are from Italy, Greece, and Turkey, while our founder's roots are in the Balkans, in Romania. So we're all citizens of the Roman Empire. The store is operated by archaeologyart LLC, an American company.
Our founder in Rome, at the Baths of Diocletian, part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. The Greek inscription on the mosaic reads "Know thyself". We couldn't have found a better place for an "About Us" page.
If you have any questions, you can reach out to us via our contact page.