How can you tell the difference between a lithograph and a painting? Or a drawing?

Question

How can you tell the difference between a lithograph and a painting? Or a drawing?

Answer 1

a lithograph is usually a printed copy of something (called the original) this might be a photograph, painting, drawing etc.

one way of distinguishing between a copy and an original is to check for printing other than the image. for example "printed in italy" etc.

next you will need a magnifying glass. a lithograph is made up of little dots of different colors of ink. the density of the dots, called dots per inch, varies and it may take a strong magnifying glass to spot the dots of ink.

of course, there are all kinds of exceptions but generally you should be able to distinguish the difference. a good way to learn the difference is to look at pictures in a newspaper and a better quality magazine.