What to Do When Your Painting Arrives: A First-24-Hours Checklist

When a hand-painted canvas arrives at your door, do four things in this order: open the box standing upright, photograph the painting and the packaging before you move either one, let the piece sit unwrapped in the room for about a day, and only then decide where the nail goes. Twenty minutes of care in that first hour prevents nearly every problem people write to us about later.

We've shipped a lot of paintings out of the studio. Damage in transit is rarer than its reputation suggests — carriers are better than people think, and a properly corner-blocked crate takes a real beating. What is not rare is a box cutter going a quarter-inch too deep, or a canvas leaned face-first against a radiator "just for tonight." So this is the checklist we'd give a friend.

How should you open the box?

Stand the box on its long edge rather than laying it flat. A painting lying flat on the floor invites you to cut downward into it; standing up, your blade angles away from the surface. Cut the tape only, never the seams, and keep the blade shallow — two or three millimetres is plenty. Better still, use scissors on the tape and pull the flaps open by hand.

Slide the painting out rather than tipping the box. Hold the wooden stretcher frame, not the canvas. Fingers pressed into the back of stretched fabric leave a dimple that can take weeks to relax out, and on heavy impasto work a thumb in the wrong place can crack a raised ridge.

And keep the packaging. All of it, for at least a week. If you do need a claim or the 30-day return window, the original materials are what make it painless.

What should you photograph, and when?

Before you unwrap anything: shoot the outside of the box, including any dents or crush marks on the corners. Then the painting still in its inner wrap. Then again once it's free. Use daylight if you can, and take one raking shot from the side so the texture reads.

This takes ninety seconds and it's the single most useful thing you can do. If something is wrong, you have a clean record. If nothing is wrong — the usual outcome — you have a nice day-one photo and a reference for how the surface looked before years of living with it.

Does a painting need to rest before you hang it?

Give it roughly 24 hours in the room where it will live: unwrapped, leaning face-out against a wall, something soft under the bottom edge. Canvas and wood are hygroscopic — they take up and release moisture with the air around them. A piece that travelled through a cold cargo hold and then a warm delivery van benefits from settling into your humidity before it's fixed to a wall.

That day also buys you a free trial. Lean it in two or three candidate spots and watch what happens to it in morning light, at four in the afternoon, and under lamps. Colours shift more than most people expect. That's normal pigment behaviour under different colour temperatures, not a flaw — we went into it properly in why a painting looks different in your room.

Leaning a new piece where it will eventually hang is the cheapest test there is. You learn more in a day than in an hour of measuring.

What should you actually inspect?

Run through this once, in good light:

• Surface — look across the painting at a low angle, not straight on. Raking light shows scuffs, pressure marks and any flattened texture immediately.
• Corners and edges — the likeliest spot for transit contact. Check the canvas is still taut and the corners sit square.
• Back and hardware — the wire or D-rings should be firmly seated. Give the wire a gentle pull before you trust it.
• Signature — every Rosemary Art piece is 100% hand-painted and signed. Find it. It's usually on the lower front edge or the reverse.

A faint smell of oil for the first few days is normal and fades on its own. So does a slightly tacky feel on very thick impasto — heavy paint keeps curing for months after the surface is dry to the touch, which is one reason we ship textured work with spacers rather than tight wrapping.

Where does the hardware go?

Drywall on a decent anchor will hold a small canvas. Anything much over 60 × 90 cm deserves a stud or a proper toggle. Our frames ship included and already fitted, so you're only solving the wall side of the problem. Two hooks spaced about a third in from each side beat one central hook — the painting hangs level and, more importantly, stays level when a door slams.

If you're unsure about height or centring, how high to hang wall art has the actual numbers.

Hardware seated properly, level checked twice — then you can stop thinking about it for a decade.

What if something is wrong?

Email us with the photos. Every order ships free and insured, delivery runs four to eight days, and you have 30 days to return. We also send you a photo of your finished painting for approval before it leaves the studio — we ship after the 24-hour approval step, so nothing is ever held up waiting on it. The piece in the box should match the piece you said yes to. If it doesn't, that's ours to fix.

Ready to find one? Browse new arrivals or the full collection. Free size and colour customisation is available on almost everything.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a new painting rest before hanging?
About 24 hours, unwrapped, in the room it will hang in. Longer doesn't hurt.

Can I hang it the same day it arrives?
Yes, nothing catastrophic happens. But you lose the chance to test the spot in different light, and that's the part people regret.

My oil painting smells. Is that a problem?
No. Linseed oil has a smell as it cures. It fades within days to a couple of weeks depending on ventilation.

Should I keep the box?
For at least a week, ideally through the return window. After that, recycle it — long-term storage of a painting is a different problem, covered in moving and storing original paintings.

What if the canvas looks slightly slack?
Common after a temperature swing and usually self-correcting within a day or two as the fabric re-equalises. If it's still loose after a week, message us.

For background on how museums think about environment and handling, the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute publishes accessible guidance, and Wikipedia's overview of painting conservation is a decent starting point if you want the deeper version.