Rolled poster, stretched canvas, framed canvas or framed paper? An honest guide

Rolled poster: cheapest to buy, but the work is not done

The rolled poster is the most economical option and usually the cheapest to ship, because it travels in a tube rather than a large flat box. It also gives you something none of the other formats do: total control. You choose the frame, the mat, the finish — which matters if your room already has a strong style of its own.

The honest downside is that the framing cost and the framing errand are yours. A print that arrives rolled needs to be flattened and either taken to a framer or fitted into a frame you source yourself. If you suspect the tube will sit in a closet for six months, one of the finished formats will serve you better.

Stretched canvas: ready to hang, nothing between you and the image

A stretched canvas arrives ready to go on the wall — no framer, no glass, no assembly. Because there is no glass, there is no glare either, which makes canvas the safe choice for a wall opposite a window or under strong lamps.

The flip side of no glass is no protection. The surface is exposed to dust and curious fingers, so a busy hallway or a child-height spot deserves some thought. And while many people like the clean, frameless edge, others find an unframed canvas looks unfinished. That is taste, not fact, but it is worth knowing before you order.

Framed canvas: the finished object

A framed canvas is the stretched canvas with the decision already made. It arrives as a complete piece, and it still has no glass, so the no-glare advantage carries over. If you want to open the box, hang the picture and be done, this is the format for that.

What you give up is choice and a little money. The frame is the one we offer, not one you picked from a framer’s wall, and the price sits above the plain stretched canvas. The parcel is also larger and heavier than a tube, which shows in shipping.

Framed paper: the gallery look, with the heaviest box

Framed paper is the classic presentation — the way prints and works on paper have hung in galleries for a very long time. The print sits behind a protective front, so of the four formats this is the one where the surface itself is shielded from dust and handling.

The trade-offs are physical. A protective front can catch reflections in some light, and a framed paper piece is the heaviest and most fragile thing we ship. It travels well packed, but it is fair to say this format asks the most of the courier.

Matching the artwork to the format

There are no rules here, only natural pairings. A painting with visible brushwork — a Dutch still life, a Romantic landscape, an Impressionist scene — tends to feel at home on canvas, where the woven surface echoes the original. Works that were born on paper — vintage travel posters, lithographs, Japanese woodblock prints, botanical plates — usually look most like themselves on paper, whether you frame a rolled poster yourself or order it framed. A poster graphic on canvas is not wrong; it is simply a different object than the one its designer imagined.

Getting the size right

Three habits prevent most sizing regrets. Measure the wall, not your memory of it. For art above furniture, aim for roughly two-thirds the width of the sofa, bed or console beneath it — much narrower and the piece floats, much wider and it looms. And hang so the centre of the artwork sits near eye level, about 145 cm from the floor.

If you are torn between two sizes, mark the candidate rectangles on the wall with painter’s tape and live with them for a day. Larger wins more often than people expect, because walls swallow small art. In narrow spots — hallways, stair walls, the gap beside a bookcase — a pair or trio of smaller pieces often works better than one medium one.

Before you order

Exact dimensions, frame colours and the options available for each piece are listed on every product page, so check the listing rather than assuming every size comes in every format. Every restoration in our catalogue is our own work, and we verify the rights status of each artwork individually before it is listed.

If you are still undecided, browse with the formats in mind: all three of our Etsy shops offer the same four options, so you can pick the artwork first and the format second. Find the picture you keep coming back to, then let the wall, the light and your appetite for a framing errand choose between the tube, the canvas and the frame.