Period Picture Frames

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M

mbholden

Well-known member
In the 1700's paintings of family were in the houses of the wealthy. The painters are well documented, but, who made the frames for the paintings?
I have noticed that various periods and countries, as hung in the local art museum, have a consistency of style relative to the period. Further, a painting on loan from a museum several states away had a frame consistent in style to the ones used locally. This leads me to believe that the frames are original to the piece.
Can anyone shed light on this?
Can anyone direct me to a book on the subject?
Mike
 
Mike,

A person could discuss the framing of paintings at great length, as it covers a lot of territory in both time and space.  If you are interested in narrowing the subject to early American painting frames, there is no single book on the subject that I know of.  You have to accumulate the information from a number of references.  The two best books I have that contain such information are:  John Singleton Copley in America (multiple authors), it has a chapter by Morrison Heckscher on Copley's frames; and American Rococo, 1750-1775, by Heckscher and Bowman, it has a number of frames illustrated in the chapter on furniture.  PSP
 
Most paintings of the period had the background painted and then they applied the faces. Would not most frames be generic also. Regions should be considered.
 
Thank you for the replies, but *WHO* would make the frames?
The artist?
A Joiner?
A Cabinetmaker?

Mike
 
Mike,

The frames were made by a number of different craftsmen.  The most elaborate were assembled by a joiner, carved by a carver, and gilded by a painter/gilder.  In Heckscher's chapter on Copley's frames, he states that Copley "was probably the first of the American artists who took an active role in the design, manufacture, and marketing of the frames for their pictures."  So, you can add a fourth person, the artist/designer.  Portrait frames provided carvers, in particular, an important place to show their work.  PSP
 
Mike - Most period 18th century portrait frames were gilded.  I've recently gone very deep into gilding frames by the traditional water-gilding process.  It's fun, but very laborious.  You didn't specifically ask about gilding portrait frames, but in case you're interested, there's a British gentleman that posted a series of very detailed videos on the water gilding process:

http://www.youtube.com/user/loveitframeit/videos?view=1

The "bible", such as it is, for water gilding is "An Introduction to Water Gilding" by Marty Horowitz and Lou Tilman:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Water-Gilding-Marty-Horowitz/dp/0966318900

If you decide you want to try this, the only place I'm aware of that sells the raw materials in their traditional form (i.e., "cones" of dry clay for the bole, and dry french whiting for the gesso) is The Gold Leaf Company:

http://www.goldleafcompany.com/

Most other places like art supply stores sell materials that short-cut the traditional process to varying degrees, like supplying the clay as a pre-ground and homogenized paste.

One warning - this process looks a whole lot easier than it is.  I'm on my 10th frame, and am just now getting a feel for laying the gold cleanly without breaks and tears.  So I would highly recommend going with a frame with a very simple (linear) molding profile.  Gilding a carved or composition frame is quite difficult.
 
How hard can it be,  I said .

Having been taught to sign guild with traditional sizing many years ago, I figured that the next step was a small one to water guilding.

WRONG !

I really enjoyed the videos you posted, and can easily see now that it is like learning an entirely new art. Just the act of placing a piece of gold leaf on the cushion must take a lot of practice and ruined sheets. It was winderful to see the tricks of a practiced master which you will never easily get in a book.

Thanks for opening my eyes.

Karl
 
Karl,

Yes it really is another art.  And, you have to remember we are talking about GOLD here.  The last time I looked, it was selling for around $1,600 an ounce.  It is too intimidating for me.  When I need gilding done, I have a fellow craftsperson and friend who used to work for Sotheby's Restorations do it.  She"s got the skills and experience.  There are a lot of little "tricks".  For example:  Do you know how to gild those balls on Federal mirror frames?
PSP
 
Karl - Ironically, the british guy in the videos isn't very good at handling the gold sheets.  I can actually do a better job, and I'm a beginner.  If you want to watch someone handle gold leaf sheets expertly, take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGkS_bpRHw

and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67LM4Iovll4

Peter - Don't be intimidated.  You can purchase the supplies you need, including the gold leaf, for relatively little money.  Definitely less than a Lie-Nielsen hand plane.  While true that gold leaf has gone up substantially over the last 4 years as the price of gold bullion has risen, the price for a pack of 25 sheets hasn't gone up one-for-one with the price of gold.  Part of the reason is that the total amount of gold in a pack of 25 sheets isn't very much at all - the gold leaf is only a few microns thick.  Most of the price is labor, and the Chinese have gotten into the gold leaf business in a big way.

So much so that one can get a pack of 25 sheets of 22 kt Chinese gold for about $45 plus shipping; less if it's on sale.  Manetti italian 22 kt gold is nearly $100 per pack of 25 sheets.  Personally, I can't tell much difference between the two.

The other supplies you need are chalk (whiting), rabbit skin glue, yellow or red clay for the bole.  You can buy pre-hydrated and pulverized clay as the Charbonell brand, which is a good bit lower initial outlay than buying cones of dried clay from Germany.  Most of these supplies are pretty inexpensive, and the only tools you need are brushes, a knife (a sharpened butter knife will work), a gilder's tip, and possibly a guilder's pad, which you can make with a scrap piece of suede leather and a plywood off-cut.

It's well worth learning to do this.  A large frame (say 22" X 42") would cost a couple of thousand dollars if purchased from one of the professional shops in New York.
 
Thanks for the additional videos.


What was amazing to me about the British guy was not that he did it easily or smoothly but that he could sort of totally screw up lifting the gold from the book with the little squirrel tail brush so that it ended up crumpled, and then recover from that the way he did ; re-smoothng the sheet.  In my experience, a gold sheet in the bad condition his were when landed was a lost cause.

Karl
 
I recently "inherited"  a collection of frame guilding supplies which supplies incuded a pack of patent gold leaf with which I am quite familiar, but which also incliuded a set of sheets of tissue leaves containimg a gold leaf looking material except that it is not labelled in any way, and the sheets are about 5 1/2 square. I havenever seen or heard of gold leaf in such large squares, and from the other contents of the collection, the price on the sales ticket, and my knowledge of the owner, I suspect that big sheets are actually some sort of fake gold. How does one know for sure ?

Karl
 
Karl - The "gold" leaves you're referring to are definitely so-called composition gold, which is a mixture of various non-precious metals to yield a gold color.  Composition leaf is very different than true gold, both in application (it's much thicker) and long-term survivability.  Gold will never corrode or tarnish;  composition will eventually tarnish regardless of how well it is sealed with shellac or laquer. 
 
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