Renaissance fine art commissions, made slowly, for people who intend to keep them.
A small number of commissioned works each year. Renaissance technique, contemporary subject, archival material. Signed, framed, registered, and yours alone.
The oldest arrangement in art.
Nearly every painting you have stood in front of in a museum was commissioned. Someone wanted a face kept. Someone wanted a room to mean something. Someone paid an artist, described what mattered, and waited. The Medici did it. Flemish wool merchants did it. So did people whose names have gone entirely, and whose faces are still on the wall in Florence.
That arrangement never ended. It only went quiet.
ARTIST6 accepts a small number of commissioned works each year, made in the Renaissance tradition the studio has worked in from the beginning. Chiaroscuro. Sfumato. A single low warm light. A figure turned three quarters into the dark, holding the frame the way the masters taught the eye to expect. The grammar is five hundred years old. The face in it has never been painted before, because it is yours.
A commissioned piece from this studio is not a print of an existing work, and it is not a photograph run through a filter. It is an original contemporary artwork, built from a brief you write, directed across weeks of iteration, finished by hand, printed on archival cotton paper, framed, signed, numbered as a singular work, and entered into the studio’s permanent registry under your name or in confidence, as you prefer.
Three kinds of commission.
The studio takes on three distinct kinds of commissioned work. They are not interchangeable, and the studio will say so during the first conversation if an inquiry has landed in the wrong one.
The Personal Portrait
A Renaissance style portrait of one person, a couple, a family, or an animal that belongs to the household. Executed in the studio’s signature technique: single source warm light, absorbing dark ground, three quarter turn, classical triangular composition, the palette of bronze, umber, ochre, oxblood, and gold that runs through every chapter of the work.
This is the commission most people are looking for when they arrive here. A face they want kept properly. A marriage marked with something other than a photograph. A parent painted while there is still time to sit with them and talk about it. A dog rendered with the seriousness usually reserved for a duke.
Delivered as one framed piece, signed by hand, numbered as a singular work, with the certificate and the process document. Six to ten weeks from approved brief to delivery. Three rounds of revision included.
Price moves with size, framing, the complexity of the setting behind the figure, and the timeline. A single figure on a neutral ground sits at the lower end. A family of four in a fully built architectural interior sits at the upper end.
Four to eight of these are accepted each year.
The Patron Commission
A larger and more ambitious work. Not a portrait in the ordinary sense, but a commissioned piece of art in the older meaning of the phrase: an allegory, a personal myth, a scene from a family’s own history, a subject that matters to one person and to almost nobody else.
Patrons who commission at this level usually arrive with something they cannot buy. A story that has never been given a form. A room that needs a single object at its center. An anniversary, an inheritance, a founding, a loss. The brief is longer, the conversation is longer, and the work is built in five iteration rounds rather than three.
Larger format, often multiple figures, fully realized Renaissance setting, occasionally paired with a smaller companion piece. Delivered framed and gallery finished, with an extended process document bound in hardcover.
Ten to sixteen weeks. Two to four of these are accepted each year.
The Hospitality and Corporate Commission
A commissioned piece or short series for a hotel, a restaurant, a design practice, a private club, a members’ space, or an institution with a wall that has to hold a room. Often oversized. Often multi panel. Frequently specific to the site, the city, or the building’s own history.
This work is priced against what it does. A piece in a boutique hotel lobby is seen by thousands of people a year and becomes part of how that building is understood. That is a different proposition from a piece above a fireplace, and it is priced accordingly.
The studio retains all reproduction rights. Display rights are yours. If the piece is to appear in your own marketing, photography, or press materials, a licensing extension is negotiated separately and openly at proposal stage.
Interior designers and art consultants are welcome to inquire on a client’s behalf. Trade terms are discussed at the proposal stage.
One to three of these are accepted each year.
What arrives.
A commissioned piece is printed on Hahnemühle one hundred percent cotton archival paper, either Photo Rag 308gsm or German Etching 310gsm depending on the surface the work asks for. Pigment inks, rated for over a century of lightfastness under normal display conditions. Printed by a fine art printer the studio has worked with for years, in a room the studio has stood in.
Framing is specified with you, not for you. Hand finished wood, museum profile, or acrylic face mount, each shown as a physical sample before anything is committed. The framer is named in the documentation. So is the paper batch.
Inside the delivery:
- The finished work, signed by hand on the recto and marked as a singular piece, one of one
- A bespoke certificate of authenticity, embossed with the studio seal, issued in your name
- A commission process document of eight to sixteen pages, hardcover for patron and hospitality work, covering the brief, the tradition the piece draws on, the symbolic reading, and a selected sequence from the iteration archive
- A full resolution archival digital file, for your insurance schedule and for nothing else
- A private entry in the studio’s permanent registry, named or confidential, as you choose
- A handwritten note from the studio
The process document is the part patrons tend to underestimate before it arrives and reach for constantly afterwards. It is what turns a picture on a wall into a thing with provenance, and it is what the next generation of your family will actually read.
How a commission is made.
Every commission follows the same five stages, whether it is a single portrait or a five panel piece for a hotel lobby. The discipline protects the work, the timeline, and both of us.
One. The inquiry, and the conversation.
You send the form at the bottom of this page. Within five working days the studio replies, either with an invitation to a thirty minute call or with a polite and honest decline. On the call the studio asks about the subject, the room, the light in that room, the people involved, and what you are actually trying to keep. Most of that call is the studio listening.
Two. The proposal, and the deposit.
Within five working days of the call, a written proposal arrives: scope, format, framing, subject treatment, number of iteration rounds, delivery window, rights, and price. The proposal holds for twenty one days. Accepting it triggers a signed agreement and a thirty percent deposit. Work begins the day the deposit clears.
Three. The iteration.
This is the long part, and it is where the piece is actually decided. Each round delivers two or three genuine directions, not variations on one safe idea. You respond, in writing or on a call, with what is working and what is not. Three rounds for a personal portrait, five for a patron commission, up to seven for hospitality work. Both sides work to dates. The studio delivers by a stated day; you respond within five days of receiving.
You will be shown work you do not like. That is the process functioning correctly, not failing.
Four. Final production.
Once a direction is approved, the studio builds the final piece: full resolution work, hand post processing across the surface, archival printing, finishing, framing. Forty percent of the fee is due before printing. You see a final preview and sign off before anything touches paper. That sign off is not another revision round. It is the last look.
Five. Delivery.
The piece is packed, insured, and delivered with the certificate, the process document, the archival file, and the registry entry. The final thirty percent is due on delivery, and the work does not ship until it clears. For local deliveries the studio hangs the piece where possible. That offer is genuine and is taken up more often than you would think.
What you own, plainly.
You own the physical work, outright and permanently. You may hang it in your home, your office, or your commercial premises as specified in the agreement. You may sell it, insure it, leave it to someone, or lend it to an exhibition.
The studio retains copyright and reproduction rights, which is the standard arrangement in commissioned fine art and has been for centuries. In practice that means the studio may publish the finished work in its Journal, include it in a future monograph, or exhibit it, and you may not produce prints, merchandise, or derivative works from it.
If you want reproduction or marketing rights, say so at inquiry. It is available, it is priced, and it is written into the agreement openly. The studio would rather quote it than argue about it later.
Confidentiality runs the other way and is yours by default. The studio does not publish a commissioned work, name a patron, or post process imagery without written permission, and it does not ask for that permission until the piece has been living on your wall for a while. Several completed commissions have never appeared anywhere and never will. That is the arrangement working as intended.
Every commission is covered by a lawyer reviewed agreement. You receive it before you pay anything.
What the studio declines.
Around a third of commission inquiries are declined. This is stated here so that a decline, if it comes, reads as what it is: a matter of fit, not a judgment of you or of what you asked for.
The studio does not take on:
- Pop culture crossovers, memes, parodies, or the Renaissance as a joke format. It is a fair joke. It is not this studio’s work.
- Active devotional commissions. The work uses the symbolic language of the tradition in a secular register, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise to a congregation.
- Reproductions, restorations, or completions of existing paintings.
- Projects requiring full reproduction rights where the licensing extension is not wanted.
- Timelines that cannot hold the work. A serious portrait in three weeks is a worse portrait. The studio will decline rather than rush.
- Briefs where the studio is being hired as a tool rather than an artist. That distinction becomes clear on the call, to both parties, usually within ten minutes.
Declines are sent within five working days, are brief, and are final. Where the studio can point you toward someone better suited, it will.
Begin an inquiry.
There is no waitlist theater here and no countdown. The studio’s capacity is genuinely small, and if the calendar is full it will say so.
Tell the studio what you have in mind. A paragraph is plenty. If you are not sure what you want yet, say that instead. Half of the best commissions this studio has made began with a patron who could describe the feeling and not the picture.
Your name Email What you have in mind (a paragraph is plenty) Where it will live (a room, a wall, a building, a gift) Budget range (Three to seven thousand five hundred / Eight to fifteen thousand / Twelve to twenty five thousand / Not sure yet) Timeline (Approximate is fine)
A reply comes within five working days, from the studio, not from an assistant. Your inquiry is not added to any mailing list.
Questions the studio is asked.
Can I commission a Renaissance style portrait of myself or my family? Yes. Personal portrait commissions are the studio’s most requested work. A Renaissance style portrait commission from ARTIST6 begins at three thousand dollars and is made from photographs and conversation, not from sittings. Individuals, couples, families, and household animals are all accepted.
How much does a Renaissance portrait commission cost? Personal portraits run from a thousand to seven thousand five hundred dollars. Larger patron commissions run from three thousand to fifteen thousand. Hospitality and corporate work runs from five thousand to twenty five thousand. Price within each range depends on size, framing, the complexity of the setting, and the timeline. Every proposal carries a fixed price before you commit to anything.
How long does a commission take? Six to ten weeks for a personal portrait, ten to sixteen weeks for a patron commission, and longer for multi panel hospitality work. The clock starts when the brief is approved and the deposit clears, not when you first write. Rushed timelines are possible on occasion and carry a premium of thirty to fifty percent, though the studio would rather you waited.
Do I need to sit for the portrait? No. Commissions are built from photographs you supply, together with a conversation about the person. The studio will ask for more images than you expect, including unflattering ones, because the structure of a face reads better across twenty ordinary photographs than across two good ones.
Can you work from an old photograph of someone who has died? Yes, and it is some of the most meaningful work the studio does. Older and lower quality source images are workable. Bring whatever exists, including the poor ones. The studio will tell you honestly what is achievable before you commit.
What technique is used? The Renaissance grammar the studio works in throughout: chiaroscuro, sfumato, single source low warm light, three quarter portrait turn, triangular composition, and a palette drawn from bronze, umber, ochre, oxblood, lapis, and gold. The lineage is Caravaggio, Bronzino, and Georges de La Tour. The studio works in that tradition. It does not claim to be any of them.
Is this a painting? No, and the studio will not let anyone believe otherwise. It is a contemporary work made with digital tools including AI image generation at the direction stage, iterated across hundreds of generations, hand selected, hand post processed, then printed on archival cotton paper and finished by hand. The studio’s process page documents this in full and is linked from every page on this site. Anyone who asks is answered.
Can I get an oil painting instead? The studio does not paint in oil and will not represent its work as hand painted. If an oil on canvas is what you want, the studio will say so plainly and, where it can, point you to someone who does that work well.
How many revisions do I get? Three formal iteration rounds for a personal portrait, five for a patron commission, up to seven for hospitality work. Each round delivers two or three genuine directions. Additional rounds beyond the agreed count are available at a per round fee written into the agreement in advance, so there are no surprises in either direction.
Who owns the finished work? You own the physical piece permanently and may display, insure, sell, or bequeath it. The studio retains copyright and reproduction rights, which is standard for commissioned fine art. Marketing and reproduction licensing is available separately and is priced at proposal stage.
Will my commission be published? Only with your written permission, and the studio does not ask until the work has been with you for a while. Confidential commissions stay confidential permanently. Several already are.
What size are commissioned works? Personal portraits are usually produced between twenty four by thirty six inches and thirty by forty inches framed. Patron commissions run larger, frequently forty by sixty inches. Hospitality work is sized to the wall and is often multi panel. Size is agreed at proposal stage, after the studio has seen a photograph of the room.
Do you ship internationally? Framed commissions ship worldwide, fully insured, with customs documentation prepared by the studio. International patrons should allow additional time for framing, crating, and clearance, and the proposal will state that window explicitly.
Can a commission be a gift? Often, and it works well when the recipient is told early. A surprise commission delivered without the recipient’s involvement is a risk the studio will discuss honestly with you before accepting. Gift commissions arranged around a fixed date should begin at least four months out.
Do you work with interior designers and art consultants? Yes. Trade inquiries are welcome, and trade terms are discussed at the proposal stage. Designers who have worked with the studio once tend to come back, because the process documentation makes the piece easy to present to a client.
What if I do not like it? The iteration process exists precisely so that this does not happen at the end. You approve a direction before final production begins and sign off on a final preview before anything is printed. In practice, commissions that go wrong go wrong at the brief stage, which is why the first conversation is long and why the studio declines the ones that do not fit.
If you have read this far.
Then you are probably not browsing.
Commissioning a piece of art is an unusual thing to do in 2026, and most people who consider it talk themselves out of it, usually because they cannot picture the process. That is what this page is for. There is no obligation attached to an inquiry, no automated sequence waiting behind the form, and no follow up if you decide against it.
If it helps to talk first, write instead of using the form. A short note reaches the studio directly.
Click here to use the contact page.
The studio replies within two working days. Sometimes faster.