Do you think you may own a miniature painting by Edward Greene Malbone?

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

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

Getting a Malbone 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 Malbone painting or drawing.

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

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

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

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

The Malbone 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 Malbone 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 Malbone paintings or drawings take longer.

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

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

Edward Greene Malbone was one of the leading miniaturist painters in early American art. Malbone was born illegitimate and went by the name “Greene,” his mothers name for most of his life until the court mandated that he could use his fathers’ name, “Malbone.” Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Malbone cultivated a love for the arts as a young boy. He would watch the scenery painters at the local theater in Newport and taught himself to paint. After he painted a landscape for that same theater, Malbone was able to financially support himself as an artist.

In 1794, Malbone moved to Providence, Rhode Island where he stayed for two years and enjoyed a relatively successful career painting portraits. From 1796 until 1800, Malbone became an itinerant painter, traveling between New York, Boston and Philadelphia. In 1801, Malbone traveled with his friend and fellow painter Washington Allston south the Charleston, South Carolina. From there, the two traveled to Europe and studied under Benjamin West. Despite the fact that West encouraged Malbone to remain in London, he returned to Charleston with Allston that following December.

Malbone created a reputation for himself of being a very precise and forgiving portrait painter. Malbone was said to have brought out the best in his sitters, while still staying true to their likeness and never taking away beauty from his sitters. Perhaps this way of accentuating the best in his patrons was his recipe for success.

As with most miniaturist painters, Malbone mainly painted small circular cameo paintings with watercolor on ivory. There are more than 150 of his miniatures catalogued, with the possibility of many others existing unknown. His paintings have been described as being graceful and delicate, and were like no others painted during their time. It is said that toward the end of his career Malbone began to paint in oil, including a self-portrait. Throughout his career he also occasionally painted oil landscapes and figure pieces on ivory.

Today, Malbone’s work is housed in public and private collections all over New England including at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Malbone died in Savannah, Georgia, and because he so extensively traveled the eastern United States and Europe, it is likely that one of his unknown miniature portraits could turn up virtually anywhere.

Some art historians say that Malbone was in a league of his own as a miniature painter and was matched by no other in the United States during his lifetime. His miniatures today still remain as a reminder of his great skill for painting likenesses so precisely on such a small canvas. Still wondering about a miniature heirloom portrait hanging in your family’s estate? Contact us…it could be by Edward Greene Malbone.