British picture framemakers, 1630-1950
A selective directory of framemakers and carvers and gilders, who produced frames for significant artists and patrons or who advertised extensively in art periodicals. The 2nd edition includes 30 additional makers, taking coverage back from 1750 to 1630. It is proposed to update this directory regularly, and to include the more important missing makers.
Many of these framemakers worked in London but others were based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath and Brighton. Other framemakers can be found in the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 (1986), Jacob Simon, The Art of the Picture Frame (1996), Laura Houliston, 'Frame Making in Edinburgh 1790-1830', Regional Furniture, vol.13 (1999) and John Stabler, Norfolk Furniture Makers 1700-1840, Regional Furniture Society (2006).
Format of individual entries
* entry revised for 2nd edition
** new entry in 2nd edition
Names, business addresses, dates (‘New Style' is used for dates before 1752). Nature of business. Business and biographical information, connections with individual patrons and artists, including documented and marked frames.
Sources: see Resources and bibliography
Note: cross-references to other makers are indicated by adding ‘(qv)' after the relevant name. Addresses are taken from annual publications such as trade directories or periodicals except where monthly or daily publications or precisely dated documents are available. No adjustment has been made to street addresses to allow for the situation that many directories were compiled late in the year preceding the title date. This means that a supplier may have begun and ended business a year earlier than indicated here. Overlaps and gaps in date sequences for addresses reflect the availability of evidence. Many streets were renamed and sometimes renumbered in the 19th century and this is indicated in the listings.
Changes in the 2nd edition, 2009
In this 2nd revised and expanded edition, information has been incorporated from online sources, including early newspapers and the 1911 census. The following makers have been added. From the 17th century, René Cousin and his son Peter, John de Critz, William Emmett, Balthasar and Tobias Flessiers, George Geldorp, Matthew Goodricke, John Le Sage, Henry Norris and his son John, Edward Pearce, Jean Pelletier and his sons René and Thomas, and Zacharie Taylor. From the 18th century, John Boson, Thomas Chippendale, Richard Fletcher, Matthew Gosset, William Hallett, John Howard and his son Gerrard, Robert Johnson, Samuel Norman, James Pascall and his wife Ann, Paul Petit, John Selden and William Waters. From the 19th century, James Honeyman Brown, John Rorke, Henry Spencer and his son Harry, and William and John Wright.
Acknowledgements
This directory has been compiled by Jacob Simon, with assistance from Lynn Roberts. Thanks to Edgar Harden for information on makers' labels and James Yorke for providing access to the V&A Furniture Dept Archive. At the National Portrait Gallery, thanks to many colleagues, including Richard Hallas and Tim Moreton, and more recently Seraphina Coffmann and Heather Tilley, with voluntary help coming from two curatorial interns, Chloe Evans and Suzanna Walker, and in the mid-1990s from Margaret Binney and Michèle Riley. Grateful acknowledgements are made to the descendants of various framemakers and to other researchers acknowledged by name in individual entries.
