How do I ship oversized Oil painting to India?

I have some oil and acrylic paintings on canvas that I would like to ship to India from US to my sister. The canvas sizes are 24';x24'; (inches) and 30';x30';. So they are substantially big.





I am afraid that the cost to ship them as is might be a lot and they may be damaged in handling. Someone suggested I take the canvas out from the frame and roll it up and then just send it. But I am afraid if I take the staples out to separate the canvas stapled onto the frame, it may damage the canvas cloth and the painting.





Any experience with this? How do people ship paintings internationally?How do I ship oversized Oil painting to India?
I have shipped paintings all over the world and shipped one back to Texas that size from France. What I did was build a wooden crate. The shipping was with a freight company and I took it to their warehouse near the airport in Toulouse. The freight company had a similar warehouse in Houston at the air port and delivered the art. It was around$100 not including the box. I needed to have paperwork saying how much the art was and that the artist was alive as France has a different program for artwork of dead artists) So check out what kind of bill of sale you will need for customs or if a factor is involved.


I found out later that the airport could have recommended several companies that offer this freighting service so I can't tell you if I got a good price.


However as an artist I ship everywhere and taking out the staples is no problem and re stretching it. It is done all the time. You need a pair of pliers and a flat screwdriver and gently loosen and pull the staples out (put in trash so they don't get in your carpet) and pull out the ones with the pliers that seem a bit stuck. roll up the canvass and put both in a tube. You can take apart the stretcher bars also or just buy some new ones from the art store. (very cheap) and put those in the same tube if it is big enough or their own tube if you can't get them easily where they are going. Any art gallery can easily re stretch them for you.


Craiters and Freighters are an international shipping company I have used to box and ship also.


If your sister is going to put them back together buy this dvd on how to stretch a canvass. It is not sold in stores yet, but email me if you are interested.

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