Not a great example. The artist is Gilbert Stuart, and he was very highly paid. He unfortunately was awful with finances and left his family in debt, but everything I’ve seen indicates this was not due to lack of business or payment, but rather his spending habits.

He may not be well known today, but was certainly known in his time.

I don’t know then names of some of the artists on my wall either but I still pay for their pictures.

Whilst not trying to give influences undeserved clout, I think this misunderstands the point of this kind of thing.

You want to advertise so that when someone needs the kind of thing that you make, they will think of you, or if they are searching up for the kind of thing you provide they will see your brand, and recognise it as a familiar face.

It’s pretty rare that you have someone with an audience large enough and thirsty to buy something immediately enough that you will see many direct sales from anything like this.

I can’t remember the last time I went out and bought something immediately after an advertisement. But I’ve absolutely bought many things because I needed something, then picked the name I recognised

The artist just didn’t market themselves. Exposure means nothing if what’s being exposed offers nothing. Not to defend payment in exposer, that’s not usually a good idea, but if you have exposer to the right people and actually use that exposer you can get where you want to go. It can be of the same or greater value than the money, but it can also be less. This post implies it’s always less.