This paper describes the formal representation and analysis of a visual structure – craquelure (an accidental feature of paintings). Various statistical methods demonstrate a relationship between a formal representation of craquelure and art-historical categories of paintings. The results of this work provide confirmation of connoisseurial claims regarding craquelure as a broad indicator of authorship. The techniques employed in this study are; repertory grid, hierarchical clustering, multidimensional scaling and discriminant analysis.