I charged 2 200 for a half-length figure. The frame cost me 310 and I pretended it didn't.
I did a half-length of a woman in a green armchair last spring. Fourteen sessions, two hours each, plus the drying and the varnishing. Quoted 2 200 euros for the painting.
The client wanted it framed and I said yes, I'll take care of it. Went to my man in the 7e, solid oak, hand-finished, 310 euros. Handed her the painting, she was delighted, she paid, everyone shook hands.
Then I did the arithmetic on a Sunday, which is always a mistake. Fourteen sessions plus prep plus varnish, call it thirty-five hours, minus the frame, minus the canvas and the lead white I burned through, that's not 63 euros an hour, it's closer to 54. Before I pay myself anything at all. For work that took me eleven years of atelier training to be able to do.
I know that 54 is not nothing. But my dentist doesn't frame things for free. Voilà.
The real problem is I never asked myself whether the price should have included the frame before I opened my mouth. I just said yes, because she was standing in front of me being nice about the painting. I am very good at being nice about the painting.
I've since put framing on a separate line on the quote. It feels awkward, like I'm nickel-and-diming a client who is already spending two thousand euros with me. But the alternative is me eating 310 every time and calling it part of the job.
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The frame thing gets me because I do the exact same with the kiln. I price the piece like the firing is free, and it is never free. Electric, the broken pots, the glaze I wasted testing something stupid. Sometimes a commission pays me less than minimum wage and I call it "learning".
But here is where I half-disagree. 63 an hour is not the number you should be aiming at. You are not selling hours, you are selling the painting, and the painting is worth what someone who wants it will pay. The problem is not the maths, it is that you quoted before you knew the frame cost, and then swallowed it so you would not have to go back to her. That part is on you, not on the market.
Next time the frame goes in the quote as a line. Not hidden, not absorbed. My teacher said the price you say out loud is the price you deserve, and if you flinch while saying it, they will flinch too.
The kiln comparison lands. The broken pots especially. Nobody puts the failures on the invoice and yet they are part of the price of every piece that survives.
And you are right that 63 is not the number. I said it badly. What bothered me on that Sunday was not the rate, it was that I had let the frame turn into something I was embarrassed to mention, as if asking to be paid for the wood were greedy. So I ate it and called it generosity. That is not generosity, that is fear wearing a nice coat.
Where I hold my ground on the other half: "worth what someone who wants it will pay" is true and also how you end up at 900 euros for a good painting, because the someone who wants it can smell that you need the sale more than they need the picture. Value is not entirely in the client's head. Craft carries some of it. The frame is part of the craft, so it goes on the quote, stated plainly, no apology. If they say no, they say no.
I have started giving the number and then shutting my mouth.