Fold Laboratories

Use this right before offering a buyer a specific work or impression, to confirm it can still be bought. Re-check whether specific impressions are still purchasable, immediately before presenting them to a buyer or attempting a purchase. Each work here is unique or from a small edition, so an impression can sell between search and checkout. ALWAYS call this before offering a specific impression — offering a sold original is worse than offering nothing.

check_availability

Use this when a buyer asks what a work will cost delivered to them and when it would arrive. Given one listing_id and a US destination (a five-digit ZIP code, and the state if known), it answers with the price, the seller’s delivery charge, an ESTIMATE of sales tax from Fold’s tax engine for that ZIP code, the total, the date the seller says it ships by and the arrival window their transit estimate gives, the returns that apply, the policy links and how to check out. Read-only: nothing is opened or reserved. Checkout calculates the exact tax from the full address before the buyer pays. Fold delivers only to the 50 US states and DC.

get_delivered_quote

Use this when the buyer has chosen one work and wants to buy it. It answers with checkout_url, a page on Fold’s own site for that one work, where the buyer enters the delivery address, sees the total with sales tax and the terms, and pays. It charges nothing and reserves nothing: the work can still sell to someone else until the buyer presses Pay, and the link works once and lapses at expires_at. Give the link to the buyer or open it in your browser. Call check_availability first; one listing_id per call, since each work is its own purchase.

start_checkout

Use this when someone wants the full facts about one work before deciding: what it is, its size, how it looks, what delivery costs and when it ships, whether it can be returned, who made it, and what Fold verified about the seller. Full detail for one artwork: attribution, medium, dimensions, edition structure, provenance, seller, and every individual impression that can be bought with its own price and availability. A numbered edition has one entry per impression — including artist proofs (AP), printer proofs (PP), and the bon à tirer (BAT), which are separate objects from the numbered run and usually priced differently. Each entry in `attributes` says who stands behind it (seller_stated, fold_derived or fold_verified), and a null means unspecified rather than estimated. Also returns image URLs to show the buyer. A signed URL is TEMPORARY: honour its `expires_at` and re-fetch rather than caching or redistributing it. An image marked `permanent` is one of the work’s public images, with no expiry: a clean display copy, or, where it also says `preview`, a reduced copy watermarked by Fold. Use this before presenting a work to a buyer, and quote the `impression` label exactly as given.

get_artwork

Use this when a buyer asks where their order is or what they can still claim. With the token from the order page’s address, or the order reference from the confirmation e-mail and the e-mail address the buyer gave at checkout, it answers with the order’s status, the tracking the seller recorded, and each return or claim window with when it closes. An order is shown only to whoever proves they placed it; an unknown order and a wrong proof get the same answer.

get_order_status

Use this when a buyer wants to return a work or report a problem with an order: damage or a difference from the description on arrival, non-delivery, a doubt about authenticity or title, an agent purchase they did not authorise, cancelling before dispatch, or a 30-day return. It checks the ground against the Returns policy’s window for this order, records the request for a person at Fold, and answers with a link for sending photographs. It refunds nothing: a person at Fold decides every request and replies by e-mail. Needs the same proof as get_order_status.

open_claim

Use this when someone wants to find original paintings, prints, photographs or sculpture from independent artists by subject, style, colour, size or budget. It returns only works that meet everything asked for, each with what it met; works that meet only part come back separately as near_matches, each saying what it misses. A request can be written in words ("a large blue abstract painting under $2,000") or sent as filters — min_price_usd, max_price_usd, orientation, subject, style, medium, colors, min_height_in, max_height_in, min_width_in, max_width_in, ships_to, framed, ready_to_hang, signed, edition — and a filter wins over the same thing read from the words. applied_filters lists every constraint used and where it came from; check it, and correct a misreading with a filter. A word that names no constraint must appear in a work’s own words to match ("lighthouse"); words of mood ("calm") only order the results. This catalogue CANNOT be filtered by authenticity or provenance strength: Fold verifies sellers, not works (see _verification). Works on sale now are returned; include_sold adds sold works. Attributes are as the seller stated them, and a null means unspecified, never estimated. completeness says whether every work was checked.

search_artworks