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Artwork appraisals in Maryland for donations, estate tax, insurance, and divorce, prepared in accordance with USPAP and IRS requirements. AppraiseItNow appraises paintings, sculptures, prints, photography, and mixed media across Maryland, including Baltimore, Annapolis, and Rockville.
DEFENSIBLE, USPAP-COMPLIANT ARTWORK APPRAISAL REPORTS — QUALIFIED FOR THE IRS, MARYLAND COURTS, LENDERS, INSURERS, AND MORE.
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Owner & CEO
Joe founded AppraiseItNow to make a certified, USPAP-compliant appraisal as simple to order as anything else online. A former Bain & Company strategy consultant, Joe leads the entire team and specializes in strategy, growth, and the firm's tech capabilities.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member with 30 years in the trade, from running estate sales and an auction gallery to appraising luxury apparel, furniture, artwork, antiques, and business assets, primarily for IRS tax filings.
Personal Property Appraiser
ISA Accredited Member specializing in Asian art, with a Master's from SOAS and a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art. Ashley chairs the ISA's Antiques, Furnishings, and Decorative Arts committee and appraises for charitable donation, insurance, and equitable distribution.
Client Success Manager
Manages each engagement from the first enquiry to the delivered report, and keeps you posted at every step along the way.
International Society of AppraisersAccredited Member
The Appraisal FoundationAuthorized by Congress as the source of appraisal standardsAppraiseItNow appraises paintings, works on paper, prints, photography, sculpture, ceramics, studio glass, textiles and mixed media in Maryland for charitable donations, estate and inheritance tax filings, insurance schedules, divorce, and sales. Maryland sits inside the Washington and Philadelphia auction corridor, so a regional painter's market can be measured from sales within a short drive instead of inferred from national averages.
Donations
A donated work takes its value from the day the gift was completed, measured against sales of comparable works by the same maker. The report sets out those comparables, the condition, and the ownership record behind the figure.
Estates and inheritance
An estate often needs a figure for a date well before the file reaches us, and well before the beneficiaries sell. We reconstruct the market as it stood then, from sales close to that date, and name them.
Insurance
An insurer underwrites what replacing a work in the same market would cost, which is rarely the figure an estate uses. We prepare the schedule on that basis and keep it apart from any fair market conclusion.
The reason for the appraisal decides the standard, and the standard decides which market the comparables are drawn from. A Maryland file that settles the use first avoids the ordinary outcome of a figure that is correct for a question nobody asked.
Divorce
Maryland leaves property acquired by inheritance or gift from a third party, and anything directly traceable to it, out of marital property. A court still weighs the value of every property interest, so the work gets valued even where it is not divided.
Attribution questions
A signature, a label and a plausible attribution are three different things, and the distance between them can be most of the value. Where the maker is open we say so, and value the work on the evidence that exists.
Two Maryland statutes decide who owns a work of fine art at the moment a value is needed: one for a piece sitting in a gallery on consignment, one for a piece that arrived by inheritance or by gift.
Consignment
Bailment property
what a consigned Maryland work remains
Where a Maryland art dealer accepts a work of fine art on consignment from the artist, the dealer is the artist's bailee and the work is bailment property in which the dealer holds no legal or equitable interest until it is sold to a bona fide third party. The proceeds are bailment property on the same footing until the amount due the artist has been paid, and that holds even if the dealer later buys the work for its own account. Maryland's definition of a work of fine art reaches paintings, drawings, sculpture, mosaics and photographs, calligraphy, graphic art such as etchings and lithographs, craft work in clay, textile, fiber, wood, metal, plastic or glass, and mixed media. A work out on consignment therefore still belongs on the artist's own schedule of assets.
Divorce
Directly traceable
how far Maryland follows a work's origin
Maryland defines marital property as property acquired by one or both parties during the marriage, and excludes property acquired before the marriage, property acquired by inheritance or gift from a third party, property excluded by valid agreement, and property directly traceable to any of those sources. A painting bought during the marriage out of the proceeds of an inherited work can therefore fall outside the marital estate. The court must still consider the value of all property interests of each party when it sets a monetary award, so a non-marital work is valued even though it is never divided.
What clients say we are known for
Across 80+ published AppraiseItNow reviews the picture is consistent: every one is from a client who paid us for an appraisal, and the three things they raise most often are that they would hire us again, how quickly we answer, and how much research is visible in the report.
The appraisal was done very well. Since he was a local artist here in Charleston, SC, they took the time to study and review Jim Booth’s art. His work has made him extremely famous, which can make an appraisal challenging, but they did a superb job and clearly explained how they arrived at the appraisal value. I highly recommend Appraise It Now and will use them again for all my artwork.
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow did an excellent job appraising our unique art collection. Joe was always prompt and responsive, and he and his team delivered a thorough, well-supported appraisal in just a couple of weeks, even during the holiday season. I was genuinely impressed. Thank you for the great work!
Artwork Appraisal for Insurance Coverage
AppraiseItNow was amazing! My father passed with a large volume of artwork & I had no idea what it was worth. Their team was incredibly helpful and quick to respond with text and/or email to any questions as well as a status update along the way. Highly recommend!
Artwork Appraisal for Probate
I recently requested a retroactive appraisal for fine art from AppraiseItNow. I received excellent service from intake to delivery. The appraisal was delivered on time and the content of the appraisal absolutely met my expectations!
Artwork Appraisal
From the start they were very responsive, price competitive, and had a quick turn around time. Thank you so much to Joe who was very sweet in responding to my emails; I am looking forward to utilizing AppraiseItNow for many years to come.
Very thorough and professional — great communication and outstanding service. Highly impressed with their work!
Given the USPAP-compliant nature of AppraiseItNow’s appraisal reports, we prepare our deliverables for major legal, tax, and financial reporting purposes for individual and commercial clients.
Popular uses of our appraisal reports include:
Each item on a Maryland probate inventory must be fairly appraised as of the date of death under Estates & Trusts section 7-202, and the personal representative may employ a qualified, disinterested appraiser for any asset whose value is fairly debatable, which describes most significant artwork. Different appraisers may be used for different asset classes.
Possibly twice. Maryland levies an estate tax on taxable estates above $5 million at 16%, and separately a 10% inheritance tax on property passing to non-exempt beneficiaries. Close relatives are generally exempt from the inheritance tax, but art passing to friends or distant relations may not be, making the appraised value directly consequential.
Artist identity dominates: quantitative studies attribute roughly 30% to 40% of value variance to the artist alone, with condition and provenance each carrying more weight than size or material. That is why our appraisers document attribution, restoration history, and ownership records rather than pricing by dimensions.
Yes. Maryland Estates & Trusts section 2-301 lets each register of wills appoint standing appraisers, and property requiring independent appraisal that no special appraiser has valued falls to them. In practice, representatives commonly retain their own qualified appraiser for artwork so the inventory value reflects genuine market evidence.
