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Picture Frames
Picture Framing
Picture framing is an age old technique that has been used for centuries to enhance the beauty of art and paintings. Picture framing is also used to decorate walls, from palaces to living rooms. The style of the picture frames can say a lot about the art that it contains. A contemporary piece not the same as a modern one. The picture framing process is not only about hanging and displaing your artwork. It provides the creative use of moldings that miraculously transform the artwork into countless effects that emphasize various aspects of the art within the frame. Picture framing and mirror framing is a combination of fine carpentry, aesthetics, and excellent interior design.A Guide to Picture Frames at Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire
This guide was first produced on the occasion of a lecture by Jacob Simon at Beningbrough Hall on 24 June 1998. Beningbrough, eight miles outside York, is an imposing house built for John Bourchier on his return from the Grand Tour and completed in 1716. The baroque interiors are ornamented with some of the most exceptional woodcarving of the period. Beningbrough is owned by the National Trust and houses more than 120 portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. For opening times, see the National Trust website, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ or telephone 01904 470 666.
Introduction
The picture frame has existed for as long as pictures have been moveable. Any moveable painting required a frame to protect it and even a fixed painting, such as the overdoors at Beningbrough, needed some sort of framework. While the frame may have started out as a form of protection, its visual and symbolic purposes soon became very important. At Beningbrough the visitor has the opportunity to study the superb early eighteenth-century woodcarving of the house itself, as well as the picture frames which range in date from the mid-seventeent century onwards, with an emphasis on the period 1680-1770.
Techniques and Materials
The story of the picture frame in England really begins in the sixteenth century. The earliest frames were made of oak, which remained popular until the mid-seventeenth century and was used again in the late nineteenth century. From the late seventeenth until the twentieth century, pine was the most frequently used wood, but lime, a softer, paler timber, was often used for the most delicate carving as in the State Bedchamber and adjoining 'cabinet' rooms at Beningbrough. The earliest frames were joined at the corners with a lap joint, where the frame sides overlap, but by the eighteenth century, the mitre joint, where the corners are cut diagonally and are joined by a key on the rear side of the frame, had become universal.
In the sixteenth century frames were usually painted, but from the seventeenth century onwards many frames were gilt, that is covered in gold leaf, or finished in silver and lacquered for protection and to give the appearance of gold. The gold leaf was attached by an oil-based adhesive ('oil gilt') or one which was water-based ('water gilt'). Water gilding was a more time-consuming process and required a special preparation of clay (the 'bole') which provided the firm, smooth foundation necessary for the gilding to be burnished, or polished.
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