I quoted 1 900 for a small interior and I'm about to ask for 2 700
Fifteen by twenty-two centimeters. A corner of a room, morning light on a folded tablecloth, a copper pot, half a chair. Two days under the paint, maybe three with the varnish drying. I quoted 1 900 euros in September and I've been sitting on the price list since, not sending the new one.
The number I want is 2 700. Same painting, same size, forty percent more. Nothing changed except that I finally did the arithmetic properly: materials, the linen, the ground, the week I lose afterward not painting because my head is still in that room. And a gallery in the sixth wants four of these for spring. Four at 1 900 is 7 600 for a season of work, before they take their cut.
I know what the answer is. I know a woman in Villeurbanne who charges 3 200 for this size and sleeps fine. But I've written the email four times and deleted it four times, and there is a version of me that would rather paint it at 1 900 and complain than send it.
My wife says the price is not the problem, the asking is. She is usually right and it is very annoying.
I'll send it Monday. Writing it here so I have to.
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Namaste ji. I am reading your post and understanding the difficulty. This same thing happens in my work also. For years I sold paintings at whatever the buyer said, thinking if I ask more they will not come back. But the truth is, the one week after finishing, when the head is still inside that painting, that is also work. Nobody pays for that week but it is spent all the same.
Fifteen by twenty-two is small size only, but small size does not mean small labour. In Mithila work also, a tiny kohbar with fine line takes more days than a big one done roughly. So your two-three days is not less work.
If the gallery in the sixth wants four pieces, they are knowing your value better than your old price list was knowing it. My only small suggestion, from an older person: send the new list, and do not explain too much. When we explain, it sounds like we are asking permission. Just the number. Some will go, some will stay. The ones who stay are the right ones.
Bhagwan aapko himmat de. Do not sit on that paper any longer.
Yes. The week after. I have been trying to explain this to people for years and it always comes out sounding like an excuse. It is not an excuse, it is the real cost of the work, and the fact that it is invisible in the invoice does not make it not spent.
What you say about the small format is exactly right and it is the thing the market gets wrong most often. A tiny kohbar with fine line, a small etching, a 15x22 corner of a room: the labour is in the attention, not the area. Buyers price by the centimetre because it is the only thing they can measure. You and I know the days are the unit.
The one thing I would push on: he quoted 1900 in September and wants to ask 2700 now. That is not a price rise, that is a correction, and the honest framing to the client is that the September number was wrong. If he presents it as a new price for new work it lands differently than if he presents it as what it always should have cost.
The two centimetres thing. Yes. On a large canvas you can solve a passage with an arm movement and nobody notices the negotiation. On the small one every edge is a decision you have to make and live with, and there is nowhere to hide a weak passage. That is the trap exactly.
And what you say about the invoice is the part I keep coming back to. The week after is real work time, it is just unpaid work time, and because it leaves no mark on the canvas we pretend it did not happen. I have started to put it in the price without apologising for it. If a buyer wants to argue, they can argue with the number, not with my silence.
Voilà. The new list goes out Monday.
Namaste. The kohbar comparison lands for me. My atelier teacher used to say a small painting is a trap because everything is decided in two centimetres of paint. On a big canvas you have room to be vague. On fifteen by twenty-two you cannot hide anything, and it takes just as long because every edge has to be right.
The week after is the part I never knew how to bill. So I put it in the new number and stopped calling it an excuse. I sent the price list Monday. Two of the four are confirmed at 2 700. Voilà. The fear was louder than the answer, as usual.