1st Art Gallery review (2026): the longest guarantee, the least said about materials

The verdict

1st Art Gallery has been selling hand-painted reproductions since 2003 and says it has filled more than 300,000 orders. On the ten things this site checks, it does four of them better than almost anyone: it emails you a photograph of the finished painting and will not ship until you approve it, it will paint the sides of the canvas so the picture wraps around the stretcher, it prices thirteen frames on the product page, and it puts a ceiling on custom sizes in writing — 95 inches on one side, unlimited on the other.

What it will not tell you is what you are buying. Nowhere on the Starry Night page, the framing block, the Processing and Shipping page or the guarantee page does the word linen or cotton appear. The canvas is simply "canvas" — the only one of the eight stores that never names the material at all, where even the cotton sellers say cotton. And the company address in the footer is a registered office in Limassol, Cyprus — which is where the invoice comes from, not where the brush touches the cloth.

What you actually get for the money

Getting hold of a human

How it scores, criterion by criterion

What it costs

At 20 by 16 inches the painting is $362.95 rolled. Add stretching and it is $699. Add a frame and the cheapest option lands at $827, the widest moulding at $986. That is the most expensive framed small canvas of the eight stores surveyed, and it is the direct consequence of the one thing the store does that its rivals mostly do not: it ships an assembled, ready-to-hang object across the world at its own cost. For how that compares across the market, see how much oil painting reproductions cost.

Strengths and weaknesses

• The proof is unconditional. Several stores photograph the finished work; this one puts "we will not ship until you are 100% satisfied" in writing on the product page, where a buyer will actually read it.
• The gallery wrap is properly explained. The page distinguishes stretching from gallery wrap and says plainly that with a wrap the sides are painted too — a distinction most stores blur.
• Framing is priced, not quoted. Thirteen mouldings with widths and prices beside them, before you enter an email address.
• Nobody will name the canvas. Thirteen pages read on 2026-09-05, and the fibre is never stated — the only store of the eight that never names the material. For a product sold as museum quality, that is a strange thing to leave out.
• Nobody will name the country either. A Cyprus holding company and a US toll-free number tell you nothing about who paints the picture.
• The permanent sale is a pricing habit, not a discount. A struck-through figure that has never been the price is noise in a market where buyers are trying to compare like with like.

One caution about that guarantee, now that the small print is on the table. Three hundred and sixty-five days is genuinely the longest window of the eight and the refund is real cash, not credit. But the store keeps its shipping costs — "on average, $35 per painting" — you pay the postage to send it back, and three categories are carved out: "custom orders are not covered", portraits "cannot be returned if they have been approved by the customer prior to their dispatch", and "the purchase of a frame is final". The guarantee is also "not transferable to 3rd parties", so it will not travel with a gift. A year to change your mind is worth a great deal; it is worth knowing it costs about $35 plus postage to use.

Who it is for

Buy here if you want the painting to arrive framed, wrapped and ready for the wall, if you want a proof before it ships, and if a very long guarantee gives you the confidence to press the button. It suits a large statement piece above a sofa, and it suits anyone ordering a size that does not exist in a catalogue.

Look elsewhere if the materials matter to you as much as the finish. Three stores in this survey name linen on the page — HandmadePiece gives it a weight, TOPofART says so on every product, and Art & See lists Belgian linen canvas and archival stretcher bars among its materials — and once you have read a sentence like that, "canvas" starts to look like an answer nobody wanted to give. Our full ranking is in the best oil painting reproduction companies guide, and the method behind these ten criteria is set out in how we review.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. 1.1st Art Gallery home page — 1st Art Gallery. Accessed September 5, 2026.
2. 2.Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh — reproduction product page — 1st Art Gallery. Accessed September 5, 2026.
3. 3.Processing and Shipping — 1st Art Gallery. Accessed September 5, 2026.
4. 4.1st-art-gallery.com reviews — Trustpilot. Accessed September 5, 2026.
5. 5.The Starry Night, 1889 — collection record — Museum of Modern Art. Accessed September 5, 2026.
6. 6.Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9701, paintings executed entirely by hand — United States International Trade Commission. Accessed September 5, 2026.