Get a Humphry Certificate of Authenticity for your painting (COA) for your Humphry drawing.

For all your Humphry artworks you need a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) in order to sell, to insure or to donate for a tax deduction.

Getting a Humphry Certificate of Authenticity (COA) is easy. Just send us photos and dimensions and tell us what you know about the origin or history of your Humphry painting or drawing.

If you want to sell your Humphry painting or drawing use our selling services. We offer Humphry selling help, selling advice, private treaty sales and full brokerage.

We have been authenticating Humphry and issuing certificates of authenticity since 2002. We are recognized Humphry experts and Humphry certified appraisers. We issue COAs and appraisals for all Humphry artworks.

Our Humphry paintings and drawings authentications are accepted and respected worldwide.

Each COA is backed by in-depth research and analysis authentication reports.

The Humphry certificates of authenticity we issue are based on solid, reliable and fully referenced art investigations, authentication research, analytical work and forensic studies.

We are available to examine your Humphry painting or drawing anywhere in the world.

You will generally receive your certificates of authenticity and authentication report within two weeks. Some complicated cases with difficult to research Humphry paintings or drawings take longer.

Our clients include Humphry collectors, investors, tax authorities, insurance adjusters, appraisers, valuers, auctioneers, Federal agencies and many law firms.

We perform Ozias Humphry art authentication, appraisal, certificates of authenticity (COA), analysis, research, scientific tests, full art authentications. We will help you sell your Ozias Humphry or we will sell it for you.

Ozias Humphry was a leading English painter of portrait miniatures, later oils and pastels, of the 18th century. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1791, and in 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King (ie pastels). Born and schooled in Honiton, Devon, Humphrey was attracted by the gallery of casts opened by the Duke of Richmond and came to London to study art at Shipley’s school. He also studied art in Bath (under Samuel Collins, taking over his practice in 1762); in Bath, he lodged with Thomas Linley. As a young artist, his talent was encouraged by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others. His problems with his sight, which were finally to lead to blindness, began in the early 1770s and forced him to paint larger works in oils and pastel.

He travelled to Italy in 1773 with his great friend George Romney, stopping en route at Knole, near Sevenoaks in Kent, where the Duke of Dorset commissioned several works from him. His stay in Italy lasted until 1777.

On his return, his numerous subjects included George Stubbs (1777), fellow Academician Dominic Serres, the chemist Joseph Priestley, and a portrait claimed to be of the teenage Jane Austen, from perhaps as early as 1790 (clothing styles suggest a later date), known as the “Rice” portrait after a later owner, though this has always been a controversial attribution of the sitter. This failed to reach its minimum estimate in a Christies auction in April 2007, and was withdrawn from sale. His pupils included John Opie. He compiled a fifty page manuscript A Memoir of George Stubbs, based on what Stubbs had related to him; it is the only contemporary biography. This was edited and privately published in the 1870’s and republished in 2005. He also knew William Blake, and commissioned copies of some of his illustrated books. At least one of Blake’s letters to him is a significant document for Blake’s biography.

From 1785 to 1787, he traveled to India, producing many miniatures and sketches. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1791. In 1792 he was appointed Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King. Most of his many portraits of the Royal Family are still in the Royal Collection.His sight finally failed in 1797 and he died in 1810 in Hampstead, north London.

The bulk of his possessions came into the hands of his natural son, William Upcott, the book collector. From him the British Museum acquired a large number of papers relating to Humphry. He is alluded to in some lines by Hayley.

Still wondering about a British painting in your family collection? Contact us…it could be by Ozias Humphry.