What Do You Do With Old Portraits?

A friend who is downsizing has a lot of art including a few large oil paintings of fore bearers, dating back to the early 1800s. She won’t be able to take all her old art with her, but she looked the old portraits with a smile and a tiny sigh, and said, “I guess I’ll keep the Old Pusses.”

They are lovely paintings and they have space for them in their future home. But not everyone who has old portraits has the room to keep them. And not everyone wants to display paintings and photographs of previous generations, many of whom they never knew. All of which raises the question: what do you do with old portraits?

The first thing you do is eliminate guilt from the decision making. Who and what you display in your house is up to you. You are under zero obligation to hang a large wedding photograph of your great grandparents. The room you have in your heart for love of family history is infinite. The wall space you have for hanging art in your home is not. You should to surround yourself art that makes you happy. And it might not be that wedding photo.

The second thing you do is document the people is in the portrait. Take a photo of it, add notes for future generations. You may not want the photo or painting, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to preserve that part of your family story.

Third, check with other family members to see if anyone else wants old portraits or photos. I received a box of old family photos from my last remaining auntie years after my mother passed away, and there were photos in there I had never seen. I am so happy to have those.

If you decide to let those portraits go, you have to decide what you want to do with them. Paintings and photographs that may have been done by a noted artist may have resale value. More common photographs and paintings have decorative value and are prized and collected by decorators, artists and others. Those may have resale or donation value. Common photographs that are not of great age or great interest or are only one of multiple copies can often be disposed of.

People are often uncomfortable at the idea of a painting of their grandmother hanging someone else’s house or a restaurant. But how often do you look at a portrait of someone you don’t know and find yourself charmed by their smile or be intrigued by their clothing? Giving up art of your predecessors so they can be appreciated and have new lives with others is not a bad thing. What you do with your old portraits is up to you; do what you can feel good about at the end of the day.

Decorating with what some call “instant ancestors” or “stranger art” is popular with vintage decor lovers. Old portraits have character you will not find at a big box store. You can use them in groups or singly as a focal point. We found some inspiration for how to decorate with vintage portraits.