British picture framemakers, 1630-1950 - C
Contributions are welcome, to Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk
Cross-references to other makers are indicated by adding '(qv)' after the relevant name.
Resources and bibliography
George Carew, see Matthew Goodricke
*Nathaniel Castile 1826-1857, (Nathaniel) Castile & Son 1858-1887, Nathaniel Castile 1887-1907. At 25 Charlotte St, Fitzroy Square, London 1826-1830, 6 Chapel St, Tottenham Court Road 1831-1857, 27a Upper George St 1856-1857, 5 Dorset St, Portman Square 1858-1887, 10 New Quebec St W 1888-1906, 21 New Quebec St 1907. Carvers and gilders.
Nathaniel Castile (1796-1869) is presumably the man of this name christened in 1796 at St George in the East, London, the son of John and Judith Castile. He died in 1869 in the Marylebone registration district. He was recorded at 25 Charlotte St, Fitzroy Square, as carver, gilder and dealer in looking glasses and pictures, when he took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office in 1826 and 1829, and at 6 Chapel St in 1832. John Constable employed Nathaniel Castille or Castile to frame David Lucas's prints of his work in 1834, with further payments due in 1836 (Beckett 1966 pp.451-2).
Nathaniel Castile and his wife, Elanor, had six children between 1827 and 1837, including a son, also named Nathaniel Castile (1832-1919). In the 1851 census, this son, age 18, was recorded as apprenticed to his father, and he reoccurs in subsequent censuses, up to and including 1911, as a carver and gilder, employing one man in 1881, but by 1911 retired. He in turn appears to have had a son by the name of Nathaniel Castile, who was born in the Marylebone registration district in 1870.
Sources: Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vols 506, 522, 538. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*William Chalmers 1799-1819, William Chalmers & Son 1820-1823, Chalmers & Son 1823-1841. At Alison's Close, Edinburgh 1799-1803, Back Stairs 1804-1810, High St 1811, 243 High St 1812, 270 Canongate 1813-1814, 118 High St 1815-1820, 6 Waterloo Place 1820, 11 Waterloo Place 1820, 115 High St 1821-1822, 153 High St 1821-1825, 118 High St 1823-1828, 45 Princes Street 1829-1831, 42 Princes St 1832-1835, 17 West Register St 1836, 20 West Register St 1837-1840. Carvers, gilders and picture cleaners, later also printsellers.
William Chalmers (d.1842?) was first listed in Post Office Directories in 1799 as a 'picture framer and gilder'. His son, Thomas, later joined him in partnership. The workshops of this leading business were situated in Edinburgh Old Town at a succession of addresses on or close to the High St until moving to the New Town.
In 1820, Chalmers & Son advertised from 118 High St that on 20 March it would open a large wareroom at 6 Waterloo Place, Regent's Bridge, ‘with a splendid collection of Fine Pictures..., by the most eminent masters,... just arrived from the Continent' (Edinburgh Evening Courant 16 March 1820, information kindly supplied by Helen Smailes, together with the following references to the Johnston Gallery). Later, in 1834, the business advertised as picture cleaners and liners to the Royal Institution of Scotland and the Scottish Academy, and as Conservators of the Johnston Gallery of paintings, Straighton House, Wemyss Place (Gray's Edinburgh and Leith Directory 1834/5, p.389), and it published a catalogue of the more than 650 paintings in the Johnston Gallery in 1835 (Catalogue of the Johnston Gallery of Pictures,... and of the Caledonian Museum of Rare Objects of Nature, Art, &c, 2nd ed., Chalmers & Son, Edinburgh, 1835).
William Chalmers was probably the carver, gilder and picture cleaner of this name who died in 1842 (The Scotsman 19 February 1842); however, it should be noted that a William Chalmers senior, carver and gilder in Edinburgh, died in 1855 (Scotlands People). Thomas Chalmers, carver, gilder and picture cleaner, continued in business at various addresses from 1841 until 1845, initially at 21 Nelson St; he was recorded in Nelson St in the 1841 census as a carver and gilder, age 50 (ages were rounded down to the nearest five years in this census).
The artist, Archibald Skirving, used Chalmers, 1814-18, for picture frames in various woods for named portraits, and to supply London crown glass and plate glass, presumably for his pastels, as Laura Houliston has identified. Chalmers & Son submitted an account to Sir Robert Dick in 1821 for work including the provision of French corners for a frame for a painting by Poussin (National Archives of Scotland, GD1/1123/91, Dick Cunyngham Family of Prestonfield papers). The Van Dyck studio portrait, Lord and Lady Belhaven (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) has Chalmers & Son's label as carvers, gilders and picture cleaners from 118 & 153 High St, Edinburgh, thus dating to c.1825.
Sources: Houliston 1999 pp.64-5, 72; Laura Houliston, 'Raeburn's Rival, Archibald Skirving 1714-1819', see, Archibald Skirving on the National Portrait Gallery website. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
James Henry Chance, 15 King St, High Holborn, London 1836, 1839, possibly at 10 Duke St, Portland Place 1838-1839, 84 Charlotte St, Fitzroy Square 1839-1842, 28 London St, Fitzroy Square 1843-1886, 27 London St 1867-1886, street renumbered 1886/7, 50 London St 1887-1895, 52 London St 1887-1902. Carver and gilder, picture framemaker, picture restorer and printseller.
James Henry Chance (1810-1902) was the son of Edward and Susanna Chance. He received certain bequests in the will of his grandfather, the carver and gilder, James Linnell (qv), including Linnell's working tools on the condition that he assisted Linnell's executors in the sale of his stock in trade. Chance was proud of his relationship to his artist uncle, John Linnell; he was also interested in his more distant connection with the 18th-century carver of the same name, John Linnell, from whose drawings he made a set of 60 tracings, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Furniture History, vol.5, 1969, p.6).
In the 1841 census Chance is probably the James Chance, listed as a carver and gilder at Howland St, in 1851 as a carver and gilder employing four men, with his son-in-law, Charles Banks, a gilder, age 23, in 1871 employing nine men and an errand boy, in 1881 employing six men and a porter, and in 1891 still a carver and gilder at the age of 81.
Chance died aged 92 in 1902. In his will, made 13 June 1894 and proved 4 June 1902, the main beneficiary was Augusta Chance, widow of his late nephew, Edward George Chance, to whom he bequeathed his portrait by William Blake Richmond; he also made a bequest of £600 to his foreman, Charles Benomi Milsom, who continued in business as a carver and gilder at Chance's premises, 52 London St.
Chance's described himself as 'Carver, Gilder, Picture Frame Maker', also advertising such services as 'Pictures Cleaned, Lined & Restored.... Ancient and Modern Engravings. Drawings Mounted' (trade label on George Richmond's Lord Cranworth, 1860, National Portrait Gallery). Subsequently in 1876 he called himself a 'Carver, Gilder and Print Seller', offering not only to mount drawings but also to copy them in photography (Simon 1996 p.175).
Chance was a distant relative of George Richmond, whose self-portrait he owned and which he inscribed, 'one of my best friends' (Simon 1996 p.200, n.77); he also purchased an early work by George Richmond's son, William Blake Richmond, Enid and Geraint in 1859, and sat to this artist for his portrait in 1879. He undertook much framing work for George Richmond, c.1844-1876, making him distinctive incised and burnished drawing frames (example repr. Simon 1996 p.175), tabernacle frames in the Italian Renaissance style (such as Mrs W.F. Robinson, 1870, Fitzwilliam Museum) and fluted classical frames (Lord Cranworth, 1860, National Portrait Gallery).
Chance also worked for Lowes Cato Dickinson and Alessandro Ossani, often in a classical style. Examples in the National Portrait Gallery include Ossani's John Sims Reeves, 1863, and Dickinson's Richard Cobden, 1870, both in a fluted classical style very similar to the frames found on George Richmond's work. Chance also worked for Frederick Sandys, on the evidence of correspondence concerning the framing of a drawing in 1866 (Elzea 2001 p.184). As an occasional dealer, he sold Nathaniel Hone's Self-portrait, c.1760, to the National Portrait Gallery in 1864. He also collected or dealt in William Blake's Job prints and other Blake works, 1859-75 (see G.E. Bentley, Blake Records, 2nd ed., Yale University Press, 2004, pp.795-6). He supplied a frame to the National Gallery in 1871 for a picture by Giovanni Bellini.
Sources: Simon Reynolds, William Blake Richmond: An Artist's Life 1842-1921, 1995, pp.24, 125. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Chapman Brothers 1874-1916, Chapman Bros (Chelsea) Ltd 1917-1964. At 251 King's Road, Chelsea, London SW3 1874-1911, 241 King's Road 1908-1964, works 245a King's Road 1912-1964, warehouse 11 Church St, Chelsea 1913-1947. Carvers and gilders, picture framemakers, by 1911 also picture dealers and restorers.
This important business produced frames for many leading artists. The Chapman business is not well documented. It appears to have been founded by George Chapman (b. c.1844), who was recorded in the 1881 census at 251 King's Rd, as a master gilder and picture framemaker, employing four men, with his brother, Joseph, house and estate agent, in the same household. In the 1901 census George Chapman, age 57, gilder and picture framemaker, was listed with his son Edwin John Chapman (b.1879), age 21, also a gilder and picture framemaker. By the 1911 census Edward John had married and was living in Fulham, described as Manager, picture dealer and restorer, carver and gilder.
The business advertised in The Year's Art: as ‘Picture Framers, Carvers, Gilders, etc.' in 1911, featuring picture restoration in 1915, claiming in 1921 to have been ‘Established Half a Century' and reproducing a photograph of the frame workshop in 1926 and of the picture showroom in 1929. The business had an account with the artists' suppliers, Roberson, 1889-1908 (Woodcock 1997). From 1930 to 1941 Chapman Brothers took over and continued the business of Francis Draper (qv) at 110 Albany St, Regent's Park, with E.J. Chapman as manager. The company was wound up voluntarily in 1966, when G.R. Chapman was Chairman (London Gazette 21 January 1966).
Picture framing work: Chapman Brothers made frames for works by various artists. The composition frame with a myrtle leaf frieze on William Holman Hunt's The Bride of Bethlehem, finished 1885 (private coll.; Christie's 4 November 1994 lot 102), thought to have been made to the artist's design, has the label of Chapman Bros at 251 King's Rd (repr. Bronkhurst 2006 p.340). Chapman Brothers may be the makers that Dante Gabriel Rossetti was referring to when he wrote to Watts-Dunton in 1881, ‘Chapman... measured your drawing for an oak frame' (O. Doughty and J.R. Wahl, Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oxford, vol.4, 1967, p.1859).
The business worked for John Singer Sargent and Sir William Orpen. Sargent's Harley Granville Barker, 1900, has Chapman Bros's label from 241 King's Road (thus 1908 or later), as does his Lord Roberts, 1906 (both National Portrait Gallery); the latter has a similar frame to that on William Orpen's H.M. Butler, c.1911 (Fitzwilliam Museum), also by Chapman (Simon 1996 p.182, no.107). Chapman appears in Sargent's correspondence in 1910 and 1913 (Richard Ormond et al., John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes, 2009, pp.50, 191). Chapman framed Sargent's Olives in Corfu in 1922 (Fitzwilliam Museum, see Stella Panayotova, I Turned It Into a Palace, Cambridge, 2008, p.134). Chapman's frame labels are reproduced in Notes on John Singer Sargent's frames (see Notes on John Singer Sargent's frames on the National Portrait Gallery website).
Various works in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, were framed by Chapman (see Payne 2007 pp.44-65, with good reproductions of Chapman's frame labels), including St George Hare's The Victory of Faith, c.1891, Charles Shannon's Souvenir of Van Dyck: Miss Kate Harwood in a Marmiton dress, 1897 (with a standard Shannon flat reverse section frame), Philip Wilson Steer's The Falls, Richmond, Yorkshire, 1903, Charles Conder's Blue waters of Algeciras, 1905, Arthur Streeton's Sydney Harbour, 1908, Alfred Munnings's Hop pickers, c.1913, Walter Russell's The Music Hall, dated to c.1915 but possibly later, William W. Collins's Landing at Anzac Cove, c.1918, George Lambert's The Official Artist, 1921, and Ambrose McEvoy's Maud in Sunlight, 1927.
A number of portraits at the Art Workers Guild in London were framed by Chapman, including Harold Speed's Edward Warren, 1914, George Clausen's Thomas Okey, 1914, and his Edmund Sullivan, 1933, Meredith Frampton's Edwin Lutyens, 1935, and Robert Swan's Stephen Stanton, 1948.
As part of a wider programme of framing work by war artists in 1919, following the First World War, Chapman provided patterns such as 4-inch McEvoy Morland pattern, 1-inch white enamel flat frames, gilt oak Whistler, Sargent oak, Philpot special oak pattern with rosewood edges, as well as more substantial frames for large-scale works by Henry Tonks and others (Imperial War Museum, bound papers, ‘First World War Frames', see Simon 1996 p.138, n.77). Works with Chapman's label include Henry Tonks's pastel, George Moore, c.1920 (National Portrait Gallery).
Chapman framed Harris Brown's Herbert Horne, 1908 (Museo Horne, Florence) and some photographs by Baron Adolf de Meyer, including Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose, Paris, 1911 (Christie's Photographs, London, 31 May 2007 lot 82). The business undertook work for the Tate Gallery in 1921 and framed Glyn Philpot's Head of a Man, c.1924 (Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, repr. Gott 2007 p.126).
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Benjamin Charpentier, 430 Oxford St, London 1775, 24 Cumberland St, Tottenham Court Road by 1778-1787 or later, Titchfield St 1795, 11 Great Titchfield St by 1802-1819/1825. Picture framemaker, carver and gilder.
Benjamin Charpentier was a framemaker of some significance. Initially he rented part of the premises of a Mr Uriel, tinman, at 430 Oxford St in 1775, according to his insurance policy with the Sun Fire Office. He then moved to 24 Cumberland St, previously the address of James Bazin, carver and gilder, who had insured these premises with the Sun Fire Office in 1777 (DEFM). Subsequently, Charpentier insured as a carver and gilder at this address from 1778, and in Great Titchfield St in 1808 and 1814. ‘Mr Charpentier', Titchfield St, attended a meeting in 1795 of fifteen consumers and manufacturers of leaf gold who resolved to resist an attempt by journeymen goldbeaters to increase their labour charges (The Times 22 December 1795). From 1820, another framemaker of French origin, Joseph Crouzet (qv), was listed at Charpentier's address, 11 Great Titchfield St, suggesting that he may have taken over Charpentier's business. Although Charpentier continued to be included in Kent's directory until 1825, he was no longer listed in the Post Office directory after 1819.
Charpentier's trade card from 24 Cumberland St described him simply as ‘Picture-frame Maker &c' (Banks coll., with added date 1783). He appears to have developed an extensive patronage. He worked for the Duke of Beaufort, 1788-1809 (Gloucestershire Record Office, Badminton Muniments), for Alexander Wedderburn, 1794, and for Samuel Whitbread, 1798-9, supplying frames totalling £150 for Southill, Bedfordshire, apparently for portraits by John Hoppner (DEFM p.756, under Robinson; Oliver Millar in Southill: A Regency House, 1951, p.46, n.4). He submitted a bill to the Prince of Wales in April 1805 for framing Sawrey Gilpin's ‘portrait of three horses large size' (Millar 1969 p.45).
Charpentier is known to have worked for various artists including John Russell in 1798, providing a frame and glass for a portrait, Mrs Jeans and children (George C. Williamson, John Russell, 1894, p.90), Sir David Wilkie, 1806-11 (Simon 1996 p.168) and James Northcote in 1815 and 1816. There are several references to Charpentier in correspondence between Wilkie and Sir George Beaumont; in 1807 Charpentier packed Wilkie's The Blind Fiddler (Tate), and in 1811 Wilkie told Beaumont that Charpentier had got the frame ready for Portrait of a Gamekeeper, describing it as ‘a flat French frame, about four inches broad'. Interestingly, Beaumont replied to Wilkie, comparing two framemakers, Benjamin Charpentier and David Ross (qv), ‘Charpentier has made a pretty frame; but I think he loads his work too much with little ornaments. I like a frame with rich corners, and then more plain in the middle. Ross, although he did not finish them well, had an excellent pattern with shields at the corners; I have never seen frames set off pictures better' (Cunningham 1843, vol.I, pp.137, 326-8).
Sources: DEFM (quoting Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vols 243 no.361362, 266 no.402075, 342 no.527551, 445 no.823745; see also 465 no.889704); Whitley papers, vol.5, p.547; Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘Southill Park, Bedfordshire', Country Life, vol.188, 28 April 1994, p.66; Jacob Simon, 'The Account Book of James Northcote', Walpole Society, vol.58, 1996, p.25. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Charles Chenil & Co Ltd, 183a, later also at 181, King's Road, Chelsea, London 1906-1928. Artists' colourmen, brush manufacturers, picture framemakers and picture dealers.
The Chenil Gallery was set up next to Chelsea Town Hall in 1906 by Jack Knewstub, brother-in-law of both William Orpen and William Rothenstein. It followed on an earlier venture, Chelsea Art School, which had opened in 1903 with Orpen and Augustus John as principals and Knewstub as secretary. It was housed in an old Georgian house with two small rooms downstairs, one used as a shop to sell artists' materials, the other as an etching press room, and with two exhibition rooms on the first floor. The artists' materials part of the business, Charles Chenil & Co Ltd, trading as Chenil Ltd, advertised as ‘English & Foreign Artists' Colourman, Brush Manufacturers, Gilders, Carvers, & Frame Makers, Picture Dealers, Restorers and Conveyancers' (The Year's Art 1906, also advertising the Chenil Gallery). For the subsequent history of this business, see British artists' suppliers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
Augustus John's Woman with a Daffodil, 1910, and his Girl leaning on Stick, 1910, have white Whistler frames with Chenil's label (both Fitzwilliam Museum). As part of a wider programme of framing work by war artists following the First World War, Chenil provided frames for work by Sir William Orpen in 1918-9, and also a large quantity of white 6-inch Whistler frames (Imperial War Museum, bound papers, ‘First World War Frames'). Works by Orpen in the National Portrait Gallery framed by Chenil in or about 1919 include his Viscount Sumner, Sir Joseph Ward, Sir Adrian De Wiart, and Baron Hankey. Also framed by Chenil is Charles Holmes's Black Hill Moss, 1919 (National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, see Payne 2007 p.67, Gott 2007 p.81).
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
**Thomas Chippendale by 1747 to 1754, Chippendale & Rannie 1754-1766, Thomas Chippendale 1766-1770, Chippendale, Haig & Co 1771-1779. At Conduit Court, Long Acre, London 1749, Somerset Court 1752, 60-62 St Martin's Lane 1754-1779. Cabinet maker.
Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) is not treated here in detail; for a fuller discussion, see the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers and Christopher Gilbert, Thomas Chippendale, 1978. Chippendale was the active partner in the business, which depended on investment from James Rannie until his death in 1766, and by 1771 or before from Rannie's bookkeeper, Thomas Haig, and one of his executors, Henry Ferguson. After Chippendale's death in 1779, Haig continued in partnership with Chippendale's son, Thomas Chippendale the younger (1749-1822), until 31 December 1794 (London Gazette 19 December 1795).
Among the engraved designs published by Chippendale in the third edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director in 1762, there are a few for picture frames in the form of trophy and tabernacle frames of a highly enriched and heavy form. For the picture frames that Chippendale made, most particularly at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire, see Christopher Gilbert, Thomas Chippendale, 1978, pp.171, 173, 175, 182, 186. At Nostell, when Sir Rowland Winn wanted his cabinet pictures reframed in 1767, as part of a larger refurnishing programme, Chippendale provided forty-one frames for £63.10s, and then agreed to alter them by adding ‘rich Carv'd roses and other ornaments' for a further £35 (Lindsay Boynton and Nicholas Goodison, ‘The Furniture of Thomas Chippendale at Nostell Priory', Burlington Magazine, vol.111, 1969, p.355, fig.32; see also Simon 1996 p.129).
Chippendale's son, Thomas Chippendale the younger, embellished the enriched Maratta frame on Cigoli's Adoration of the Magi (National Trust, Stourhead, Wiltshire), charging £10.10s in 1802 for ‘A Rich Carved ornament for Picture frame of a large Goats head, Shell and Oak leaves' (Judith Goodison, ‘Thomas Chippendale the younger at Stourhead', Furniture History, vol.41, 2005, cat.20, p.42).
William Clifford 1848, oil and colourman. C.E. Clifford 1849-1886, artists' colourman 1849-1876, photographic materials manufacturer 1857-1865, picture restorer from 1877; C.E. Clifford & Co from 1887, printsellers; C.E. Clifford & Co Ltd from 1912, fine art publishers, printsellers, framemakers, picture restorers. At 30 Piccadilly, London WC 1848-1887, 12 Piccadilly 1888-1891, 200 Piccadilly 1892-1894, 21 Haymarket 1895-1911, 12 Bury St, St James's from 1912, subsequently elsewhere.
See British artists' suppliers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
George Coffee, 181 High Holborn, London, 1793, active 1802. A candidate for the next edition of this Directory, to include additional 19th and 20th-century framemakers. Contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
Arthur Colley & Co, 88 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 1936-1966. Picture framemaker.
See British artists' suppliers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
*Francis Collins, 11 New Cavendish St, Portland Place, London 1819-1828, 52 Great Marlborough St 1828-1832. Picture cleaner and dealer, print dealer and publisher, picture framemaker.
Francis James Collins (1790-1833), known as Frank Collins, was born in Great Titchfield St, the second son of William Collins (d.1812), a writer and picture dealer of Irish origin. He was the novelist Wilkie Collins's uncle. Francis Collins advertised the publication of Ward's print of his brother, William Collins's picture, Shrimp Boys, Cromer, in 1819, from 11 New Cavendish St (The Times 29 July 1819). In 1820 he was described as a ‘Dealer in Ancient Prints' in the Post Office London directory, while in Robson's directory he was listed as a picture and print dealer in 1819 and as a picture cleaner in 1820 and 1826.
Collins was recommended by John Constable for the post of Secretary to the British Institution in 1818, and as a picture cleaner in 1821, and again for cleaning pictures at Ham House in 1824. He was recommended for the post of keeper of the Dulwich Gallery, c.1821, by Sir Francis Chantrey who referred to his work two years previously cleaning a valuable collection of pictures, describing him as 'unpresuming, good-tempered, and sensible'.
Francis Collins worked closely with his brother, the artist William Collins (1787-1847) and, through him, was well-known to Sir David Wilkie. He acted as framemaker for Wilkie's work for George IV, 1828-30, including The Spanish Posada, The Defence of Saragossa, The Guerilla's Departure, The Guerilla's Return and The Entrance of George IV at Holyroodhouse (Millar 1969 pp.139-42). He also charged Sir Robert Peel £38.8s on a 3 March 1832 for 'An elegant frame with corners & centers Louis the 14th pattern' (British Library, Add.MS 40607 f.159) for Wilkie's John Knox preaching before the Lords of the Congregation (Tate).
Collins was living at 52 Great Marlborough St by 1828. In his unwitnessed will, made 22 January 1828 and proved 10 February 1834, he bequeathed everything to his brother, William, in most grateful terms, ‘for had it not been for him I should never have had anything to leave so it is giving him his own again'.
Sources: W. Wilkie Collins, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, 1848, vol.1, pp.4, 7, 181-2, 329, vol.2, pp.29-37; Beckett 1964 pp.331, 393, Beckett 1966 pp.68, 291-2, Beckett 1968 p.81; Farington, vol.15 p.5135. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Commercial Plate Glass Co, see Charles M'Lean
Samuel Coombes, 331 Strand, London 1871-1895, 2½ Houghton St, Clare Market 1892-1895, 175 Strand 1915. Manufacturing carver and gilder, art dealer, picture liner, restorer and cleaner. A candidate for the next edition of this Directory, to include additional 19th and 20th-century framemakers. Contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
*George Cooper 1784-1811, Cooper & Co 1811-1815, George Cooper 1816-1842, George & Edward Cooper 1843-1844, George, Charles & Edward Cooper 1844-1845, George & Edward Cooper 1846-1847. At 8 Lombard St 1784, 82 Lombard St 1785-1809, 12 George Court, Piccadilly 1809, 39 Piccadilly 1811, 42 Piccadilly 1811-1815, 43 Piccadilly 1815-1820, 35 Piccadilly 1821-1822, 36 Piccadilly 1821-1847. Carvers and gilders, glass grinders and looking glass manufacturers, decorators, by c.1840 also upholsterers.
This looking glass business appears to have continued over two generations or more, apparently from father to son, and apparently moving from the City to the West End in 1809, but this remains to be confirmed, given how common a name is ‘Cooper'.
In 1825, George Cooper attended a meeting of more than fifty master carvers and gilders who resolved to resist the demands of journeymen for an increase in wages (The Times 30 June 1825). In the 1841 census, George Cooper, carver and gilder, age 50 (ages were rounded down to the nearest five years in this census), was recorded in Piccadilly with his son, also George, age 20.
Although mainly a manufacturer of looking glasses, the business also made some picture frames. It provided a frame for the artist, Henry Bernard Chalon, when in 1833 the artist's wife wrote to Mr Cooper, Carver and Gilder, Piccadilly, nearly opposite to the church, requesting him to provide a 'bold, broad & handsome' frame for a head of a grey pony, a picture which was to be shown at the Royal Academy (Sotheby's, English Literature sale, 13 December 1993 lot 308). In Robson's directory for 1836, Cooper advertised, ‘Looking Glass Manufacturers... Carver, Gilder, Paper Hanger, House Decorator & Painter, Old glasses ground, polished & re-silvered, Picture frames of every description made at the shortest notice. An assortment of Chimney-pieces, Cheval, and fancy Toilet and Dressing Glasses kept ready made.' In 1837, Cooper advertised that his business had been established nearly a century (John Bull 30 April 1837).
*C.E. Copsey, 306 Euston Road, London 1880-1911. Picture framemaker, carver and gilder, art dealer.
Charles Edward Copsey (b.1856), the son of Edward and Frances Copsey, was born in Ware in Hertfordshire. In the 1881 census he was listed at 306 Euston Road as a carver and gilder, age 24, in 1901 at 59 Burghley Rd, St Pancras and in 1911 at 18 Glenloch Road, Haverstock Hill as a picture dealer trading on his own account. Copsey advertised as ‘Dealer in Paintings and Water Colour Drawings, Frame Maker, Carver, & Gilder' (The Year's Art 1894-1903).
**René Cousin (active 1675, died 1701), gilder. Peter Cousin, gilder, picture and mirror framemaker.
The French gilder, René Cousin (d.1701), was in England by 1675 (DEFM). He was Antonio Verrio's chief gilder at Burghley House and Windsor Castle (DEFM). His name is found in other spellings, including Reney Cousin in 1683 (National Archives, LC 3/28, p.116). In November 1678, he was listed as René Cousin, gilder, with his wife Etienne Dimanche, and their children, Mary and Peter, and his apprentice, John Carrée, as being among the foreigners, with their servants and families, employed by the King in painting and adorning Windsor Castle (W. Noel Sainsbury, ‘Artists patronized by King Charles II', Fine Arts Quarterly Review, vol.2, 1867, p.326). He was paid £463 for his gilding work at Windsor in 1678, with further payments over the next few years (Colvin 1976 p.322 and see index). Cousin was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor on 20 May 1701 (E.H. Fellowes & E.R. Poyser (eds), The... Registers of St George's Chapel, Windsor, 1957, p.211).
René Cousin gilded some picture frames. At Whitehall Palace he gilded two frames in the sacristry, carved by William Emmett (qv), as a small part of his extensive work for the Great Chapel costing £265 in December 1686, receiving further payments for gilding work the following year (Wren Society, vol.7, 1930, pp.117, 129). For Kensington Palace he supplied on the on the ‘a frame very large and very fine carved & guilded in burnished gold' for £10 in 1690 (Wren Society, vol.7, 1930, pp.154, 178).
Elsewhere, ‘Mr Cousine' supplied the Duke of Somerset with a picture frame for Petworth House for a head of a man for £2 in 1690 (Jackson-Stops 1980 p.800). The Duke of Montagu paid René Cousin £15.10s for five frames in 1699 and 1700 and a further £25 for pictures and frames as executor of Baptiste Monnoyer (Murdoch 1997-8 p.739, n.47).
Peter Cousin, René's son, produced looking glass frames for Hampton Court in 1701 (DEFM, Wren Society, vol.18, pp.160-1); ‘Peter Cousine', gilder, was paid £90.1s.2d following the death of William III in 1702 (William A. Shaw (ed.), Calendar of Treasury Books, 1702, vol.17, 1939, p.1062; see also Colvin 1976 pp.168-9). Subsequently, he worked at Windsor Castle for Queen Anne, gilding her private chapel in 1702 and regilding the Great Staircase (Colvin 1976 p.334; see also Calendar of Treasury Books, 1703, 1936, p.364).
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Benjamin Coward (active 1766, died 1791), The Golden Head, Tower St, Seven Dials, London. Carver and gilder, picture framemaker.
Benjamin Coward died in 1791, leaving his estate to be divided between his son, also Benjamin, carver and gilder, about whom nothing more is known, and his daughter Caroline, with specific bequests of mourning rings to his nephew John Coward, carver and gilder, and his wife Sarah; this is presumably John Coward (qv), who is discussed below and whose wife was indeed named Sarah.
On his label Benjamin Coward claimed to make 'all Sorts of Glass Frames, Gerand[oles], B[orde]rs for Rooms and Picture Frames' (repr. Gilbert 1996, p.152). James Northcote used Coward, presumably Benjamin Coward, for picture framing, both before leaving for Italy in 1777 and following his return to England when he had 22 portraits framed by Coward in 1780 and 1781. In 1784 the landscape painter Thomas Jones was using ‘Coward' for picture framing.
It should be noted, however, that another carver and gilder, by the name of John Coward, relationship uncertain, was operating from 4 Tower St, Seven Dials, 1766 until 1789, and was paid for work for the Duke of Portland at Burlington House, London and at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, 1766-7, and who modelled shapes and supplied drawings for Josiah Wedgwood, c.1768-9 (DEFM).
Sources: W.H. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799, 1928, p.305, for Northcote pre-Italy; Jacob Simon, 'The Account Book of James Northcote', Walpole Society, vol.58, 1996, pp.40-4; Thomas Jones 1742-1803, exh.cat., Marble Hill House, Twickenham, and National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1970, p.15. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
John Coward & Mathew Pitts 1799-1802 or later, John Coward by 1805-1820, John Coward & Son 1815-1828. At Tottenham Court Road, London 1799, 157 Tottenham Court Road 1802, 13 Tottenham Court Road 1805-1814, 253 Tottenham Court Road 1811-1824, 245 Tottenham Court Road 1814, 1822-1828. Carvers and gilders, also looking glass, picture and print dealers.
John Coward (d.1826) appears to have been the nephew of Benjamin Coward (qv). He was described as carver and gilder, later also as dealer in looking glasses, pictures and prints, when he took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office successively at 13 Tottenham Court Road in 1814, at 253 Tottenham Court Road in 1814, 1821 (when the premises were empty, see DEFM) and 1824, and at 245 Tottenham Court Road in 1824 and 1826. It is unlikely that he can be identified with John Coward, carver and gilder, who was operating from 4 Tower St, Seven Dials, 1766-89 (see Benjamin Coward above).
John Coward described himself as of 253 Tottenham Court Road in his will, made 2 April 1817 and proved 23 September 1826, referring to his wife, Sarah, his eldest son, also John, and another son, Henry Charles, and two daughters. He may possibly be the John Coward who married Sarah Bittnay at St Anne Soho in 1781.
‘Coward', probably John Coward, appears to have been Joseph Farington's framemaker from at least 1804 when he helped arrange Farington's frames and pictures in his newly papered great painting room. He was mentioned by Farington several times thereafter, notably in 1815 and 1821. After Farington's death in 1821, his friend, John Constable turned to Coward for some relatively minor framing work, 1824-6 (Simon 1996 p.88).
Sources: Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vols 464, 485, 501, 507; Farington, vol.6 p.2361, vol.7 p.2779, vol.8 p.2834, vol.13 p.4647, vol.16 p.5622. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
James Creswick or Criswick, see Criswick & Ryan
*Robert Cribb 1784-1805 and subsequently, Robert Cribb & Son 1804-1829, R.S. Cribb 1829. At 11 King St, Holborn, London 1784-1785, 288 High Holborn 1785-1829. Carvers and gilders, picture framemakers, printsellers and publishers.
Robert Cribb (?1755-1827) was both a picture framemaker and a printseller and publisher. He was apprenticed in 1769 to the gilder, William Nicholls, of the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields (Boyd). By 1782, he was in King St, Holborn, where the baptism of one of his children was recorded. He took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office as a carver, gilder and printseller from 11 King St in July 1784. The following year he advertised that he had ‘removed from his late dwelling-house, No.11, King-street, Bloomsbury, to No.288, near Great Turnstile, Holborn... where he has laid in a great variety of prints of the most perfect impressions, and best artists', also offering flower paintings on glass by Tarrant, and regilding of frames, and neat round and oval frames for miniatures (Morning Post and Daily Advertiser 2 August 1785). He was located at 288 High Holborn from 1785, but one insurance policy gives 200 High Holborn as his address, and directory entries give 298 in one instance and 228 in Andrew's directory for 1789, probably in error (DEFM). Mr Cribb, Holborn, attended a meeting in 1795 of fifteen consumers and manufacturers of leaf gold which resolved to resist an attempt by journeymen goldbeaters to increase their labour charges (The Times 22 December 1795).
Robert Cribb married Elizabeth Osborne at St Mary Woolnoth in 1777. They had several children between 1777 and 1791. Cribb took his elder son, Robert Samuel (c.1777-1829), into partnership in or before 1804 but in his will, made 5 January 1826 and proved 12 December 1827, he referred to his son as being a ‘merely nominal partner' in the business. He left him half his stock in trade, with the opportunity of buying out the other half over a period of time; he also made bequests to his four other surviving children including the carver and gilder, William Cribb (qv). Two years later in 1829, Robert Samuel Cribb, carver, gilder and printseller, ‘put an end to his existence in a fit of temporary delirium‘ (The Times 21 December 1829); he was recorded as age 52 at the time of his death.
Robert Cribb's trade card advertised that he made looking glasses, regilded frames and resilvered mirror plates, cleaned, lined and repaired pictures, and stocked Venetian blinds and paper hangings (Heal coll.) Another trade card, with the Prince of Wales feathers, gives the business as ‘Carvers & Gilders to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales' (Banks coll., with added date 1811). His trade label from 288 High Holborn as R. Cribb, describes him as 'Glass and Picture Frame Maker, and Printseller' (Johnson coll. Trade Cards 24 (42); this label was reissued by R. Cribb and Son (repr. Gilbert 1996 pl. 256).
As a picture framer, Cribb has sometimes been linked with Sir Joshua Reynolds, on rather slight evidence. As Nicholas Penny has indicated, there is no justification for referring to him as 'Reynolds's framemaker' (Penny 1986 p.817). Furthermore, the ‘Cribb' connected with Reynolds has been mistakenly identified as William Cribb since the mid-19th century. It must, however, have been Robert Cribb to whom Reynolds wrote in April 1791 concerning the sale of a copy after Claude (Ingamells 2000 p.220). William Cribb is said to have acted as an infant model for Reynolds in two paintings, one dating to 1786-8, the other exhibited 1789 (David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, 2000, nos 2094, 2142); however, it appears that William Cribb was not born until 1789. Robert Cribb bid for Lady Inchiquin at Sir Joshua Reynolds's posthumous sale in 1796 (Farington, vol.2 p.524). A palette belonging to Reynolds passed via Robert Cribb to his son, William (coll. Southside House, Wimbledon, 1992).
Robert Cribb & Son submitted a bill for more than £160 to the Prince of Wales in 1806 for framing and hanging Philip James de Loutherbourg's Banditti in a Landscape (Royal Collection, see Millar 1969 p.81); it would seem that Loutherbourg was using Cribb as his framemaker at this period since he recommended him to a friend in 1808 (Simon 1996 pp.136, 138). Cribb received a further payment of £6.11s in July 1810 for Royal commissions (DEFM).
As a publisher, Robert Cribb issued portrait prints between 1787 and 1825 (National Portrait Gallery and British Museum collections database), occasionally advertising newly published prints in The Times (27 December 1796, 12 October 1807). He also published a few caricatures, from as early as 1789 (BM Satires nos 7615, 10070, 10801).
It is not clear whether Robert Cribb was related to Samuel Cribb, picture framemaker of Exmouth St, Clerkenwell, who died in 1820, making bequests to his brother, William of Theobalds Road, among others.
Sources: Non-conformist BMD; Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vol.322 no.495146; DEFM (with details of further Sun Fire Office insurance policies and of labelled pier glasses). For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
William Cribb, 13 Tavistock St, Covent Garden, London 1811-1820, 34 King St, Covent Garden 1820-1861. Carver and gilder, picture dealer, print dealer and publisher.
William Cribb (c.1789-1870) was a leading framemaker, like his father, Robert Cribb (qv). He was listed in 1811 as a carpenter and builder at 13 Tavistock St (Holden's directory) but subsequently appears as a carver and gilder. For his links with Sir Joshua Reynolds, for whom he is said to have acted as an infant model, see Robert Cribb above.
William Cribb took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office from 13 Tavistock St as a carver and gilder in 1812 and 1814, and as a carver, gilder and printseller in 1819. He took out insurance in 1820, 1829 and 1832 from 34 King St, Covent Garden, being recorded as a printseller in 1829, and as a carver and gilder, printseller and picture dealer in 1832. From about 1829, he entered into a short-lived partnership with William Froom (qv) at 136 Strand, which was dissolved in March 1831 (London Gazette 3 May 1831).
In 1825, he attended a meeting of more than fifty master carvers and gilders who resolved to resist the demands of journeymen for an increase in wages (The Times 30 June 1825). From newspaper references, he appears to have taken an active part in the community as a church warden for St Paul Covent Garden in 1825 and 1828 (City of Westminster Archives, 426/270, 273), and as a campaigner concerning Covent Garden Theatre in 1829 (The Times 5 September 1829).
In the 1851 census William Cribb was listed at 34 King St as carver and gilder, age 61, with a son, Charles in the civil service, and as late as 1861 he was still listed as a carver and gilder. He retired from business that year but continued to live at 34 King Street until his death in 1870 at the age of 81.
Cribb's trade label, firstly from Tavistock St, and then in 1820 or later in almost identical form from King St, offered the following services, 'House Painting.... Carver, Gilder, Looking Glass Manufacturer & Printseller. Prints, Drawings, &c. Framed & glazed.... Pictures Cleaned, Lined and Repaired' (repr. Gilbert 1996 p.166).
As a framemaker William Cribb framed the work of the Edinburgh landscape painter, Alexander Nasmyth, who relied on him as a London agent. Correspondence links Nasmyth with Cribb in the period 1816-29, including a letter in 1826 from Alexander in Edinburgh, offering Cribb pictures at a reduced price, 'as you and I have had many and I hope may have more dealings' (J.C.B. Cooksey, Alexander Nasmyth, 1991, pp.125-8; Simon 1996 p.88). Cribb received a small payment from the estate of Thomas Lawrence on 17 August 1830 (V&A National Art Library, MSL/1938/1923). As a dealer, he helped launch the career of Thomas Sidney Cooper (Thomas Sydney Cooper, My Life, 1891, pp.139-40, 153-4); Cribb's label can be found on the frame of this artist's Cattle Reposing, 1846 (Fitzwilliam Museum).
As a publisher, Cribb issued prints between 1808 and 1829. He published Robert Dunkerton's mezzotint of James Northcote's Bishop John Fisher, 1808, and other portrait and subject prints, 1814-19 (examples in National Portrait Gallery, British Museum), including a print of George Henry Harlow's Kemble Family (W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1800-1820, 1928, pp.273-4). In March 1829 he reissued George Clint's print of Harlow's The Court for the Tryal of Queen Katherine, adding an address at 136 Strand where he was in partnership with William Froom (qv) (British Museum, 1836.1124.2; this print had been the subject of a contract between Cribb and Harlow in 1817, see Sheila O'Connell, 'A Contract between George Harlow and William Cribb', Print Quarterly, vol.8, 1991, pp.48-9).
As a reputed furniture maker, on the evidence of a table at Chatsworth in the style of William Kent, signed by W. Cribb and dated 1834, it has been unrealistically suggested that Robert and William Cribb were the principal manufacturers of ‘Kentian Revival' furniture of the 19th century.
Sources: DEFM; Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vols 459, 465, 482, 483, 522, 533; Jacob Simon, 'The Account Book of James Northcote', Walpole Society, vol.58, 1996, no.486; Geoffrey Beard, 'Kentian Furniture by James Richards and others', Apollo, vol.157, January 2003, p.41, also repr. Gilbert 1996 p.165. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*James Criswick 1826-1837, Criswick & Ryan by 1836-1839, James Criswick (or Creswick) 1839-1841, Criswick & Lepard 1842-1852, James Criswick 1853-1856, Henry Criswick & Co 1857, Henry & J. Criswick 1858-1861, Criswick & Dolman 1862-1876, Reginald Dolman & Co 1877, Reginald Dolman & Son 1878-1904, R. Dolman & Sons 1905-1909, R. Dolman & Son 1910-1919. At 6 Rose St, Covent Garden, London as a looking glass framer 1826, George Yard, Leicester Square as a picture framemaker 1826-1828, 29 King St, Soho 1827, 46 Greek St, Soho 1828-1837, 40 Monmouth St 1836-1840, 6 New Compton St, Soho 1836-1919, 18 Phoenix St, Soho 1839. Carvers and gilders, looking glass and picture framemakers, decorators.
Criswick's was a leading firm, said to have been established in 1818, with a reputation for fine quality work at competitive prices. The business went through various transformations over the course of a century, with an emphasis in the mid-19th century on selling looking glasses as well as picture frames. It traded for eighty years from 6 New Compton St, finally becoming Reginald Dolman & Son, in which guise it lasted until 1919, a record of stability in a trade where few businesses lasted more than a generation or two.
James Criswick, Criswick & Ryan 1818-41: The early years of the business are not well recorded and may possibly have involved a father and son working at different premises, in view of a reference to J. Criswick junr in 1829 (Robson's directory) and the overlapping addresses of the business in the 1820s.
Criswick & Ryan advertised in 1836 that they had enlarged their premises and purchased ‘the valuable and select stock of moulds, designs and drawings of Mr. Samuel Robinson, of Phoenix-street, Soho'; they claimed that they were now ‘enabled to supply the most splendid patterns in Chimney Glass and Picture Frames..., together with all kinds of ornamental mouldings', adding that they supplied veneered frames (The Times 25 June 1836). But less than a year later their premises in New Compton St, as composition ornament and picture frame manufacturers, were destroyed by fire, although the residence over their adjoining workshops in Monmouth St partially escaped (The Times 4 April 1837).
The partnership between James Creswick (b. c.1798), as his name was sometimes spelt, and James Joseph Ryan, trading as picture framemakers, carvers and gilders, was dissolved in October 1839 (London Gazette 15 October 1839), whereupon James Ryan (qv) set up in business independently and the lease of their New Compton St premises was offered for sale publicly, when it was presumably bought by Creswick (The Times 26 February 1840). In the sale advertisement, the premises were described as a very spacious shop, 70 feet deep by about 23 feet wide, with basement warehouse, a light first-floor showroom and two workshops on the upper floor. James Creswick was described as a composition ornament maker in a court case in 1841 (The Times 15 April 1841). James Creswick was listed in the 1851 census as a framemaker, age 53, living at 8 Bloomsbury Square, employing 54 men and 14 boys, a substantial business; his son, Henry, an artist, age 23, was also listed at this address.
Criswick & Ryan undertook much framing work for the marine painter, E.W. Cooke, 1836-56, including his Antiquary's Cell, 1836 (Victoria and Albert Museum, no longer in this frame). Cooke referred to the business as ‘Creswick & Ryan' in 1836 and as Criswick, 1847-56. He specified many of the frames by number, apparently an order or model number used by Criswick, consisting of four figures between 1837 and 1842 and five figures from about 1842.
Criswick & Lepard 1842-52: Little is known of John Lepard (c.1791-1878?), but he would appear to be the picture frame maker recorded in Kentish Town in the 1841 census as age 50, born in Middlesex (ages were rounded down to the nearest five years in this census). He is possibly the individual who died in the Hampstead registration district in 1878 at the age of 87.
The partnership between James Criswick and John Lepard as composition ornament manufacturers and picture framemakers was dissolved on 31 December 1852 (London Gazette 4 January 1853). Criswick & Lepard's trade card in the Jacobean style described the business as ‘Decorators, Ornamental Composition, Glass & Picture Frame Manufacturers in all the various departments... The Trade supplied with Veneer'd Frames & Mouldings in the length' (Victoria and Albert Museum Print Room, E 317-1967). The range of their business is indicated by their trade catalogue, Forty Two Drawings of Ornamental Frames for Looking Glasses & Girandoles; Cornices, Pole & Cheval Screens, Pier & Console Tables, with 42 designs, 28 of which are initialled MM (V&A National Art Library, 57.A.1).
The history painter, William Frost, appears to have been using the services of Criswick & Lepard in 1851 (Royal Academy Library, 236/18/10/a-b, letters to Thomas Miller). John Everett Millais seems also to have used the business, notably for A Huguenot on St Bartholomew's Day, exh.1852 (Makins Collection), for which he asked Holman Hunt to get some ivy from the country as a model for the picture's frame: ‘I want them for Criswick the framemaker to cast for a frame he is going to make for the lovers' (The Pre-Raphaelites, exh.cat., Tate Gallery, 1984, p.99, entry by Malcolm Warner). Sadly the picture lacks this frame but something of the effect can be gauged from Arthur Hughes's ivy frames of the mid-1850s, such as those on April Love and The Eve of St Agnes (both Tate).
The business was one of the few that subscribed towards an annual medal for the encouragement of British art as a testimonial to the gift of pictures to the nation by Robert Vernon (The Times 28 March 1849), suggesting that it may have had some connection with Vernon in the framing of his pictures.
From James Criswick to Criswick & Dolman 1853-76: The business went through a transition period in the later 1850s, as control apparently passed to Henry and James the younger, presumably sons of the business's founder, before James the younger was joined in partnership by Reginald Dolman in 1861 or 1862. In 1863 a sale was held of 1500 boxwood and pear tree moulds on the instructions of representatives of the late firm of Henry Criswick & Co; these moulds were described as being cut by ‘those celebrated artists, Robinson, Findlay, Morgan, Whitehead, Byfeld, and others that crowned the reputation of that late eminent firm Henry Criswick & Co' (The Times 9 February 1863). The partnership between James Criswick the younger and Reginald Dolman, in the business of composition ornament and framemakers was dissolved in April 1874 (London Gazette 3 April 1874). Criswick & Dolman and subsequently R. Dolman & Son had an account with the artists' suppliers, Roberson, 1870-3, 1886-92 (Woodcock 1997).
‘Creswick', picture framemaker, was employed by Dulwich College and received payment on 25 December 1855 (information from John Ingamells, 2005). The handsome frame for Thomas Jones Barker's The Secret of England's Greatness, c.1863 (National Portrait Gallery, repr. Simon 1996 p.71) bears Criswick & Dolman's rococo style trade label, which advertised the business as ‘Glass & Picture Frame Manufacturers, and Decorators...The Trade supplied in every department. Pictures removed, packed, cleaned, restored and warehoused. Established 1818' (repr. Simon 1996 p.133).
Reginald Dolman & Co, Reginald Dolman & Sons 1877-1918: Reginald Dolman (1820-1881?) appears to have been a partner with George and Henry Dolman in the business of George Dolman & Sons, carvers, gilders and picture framemakers at Nelson St, Greenwich, a partnership which was dissolved in July 1861 (London Gazette 9 July 1861). His original trade was as a decorator, and he was listed as such in the 1871 and 1881 censuses, as born in Greenwich in about 1821, now living at 42 Bernard St, Bloomsbury.
It was events at the National Gallery in 1880 that helped establish the dominant position of the firm among national museums (Simon 1996 p.133). Henry Critchfield (qv), the National Gallery's framemaker of many years, was exposed for double-charging by claiming to be working at both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, then situated in South Kensington, at one and the same time. The National Gallery sought recommendations for a successor to Critchfield from two Royal Academicians, Alma-Tadema putting forward the name of Dolman and Philip Hermogenes Calderon that of James Guillet (qv). Dolman won the contract on price, and later went on to add the newly-opened Wallace Collection to their list of clients, though it was as 'Frame Makers to the National Gallery' that they advertised until the demise of the firm in 1919.
Dolman & Son advertised as having been established in 1818 (The Year's Art 1880, and subsequently, repr. Simon 1996 p.133). The business's headed paper in 1883 described it as carvers, gilders and decorators, offering in addition to picture frames a variety of furniture including console and pier tables and glasses, chimney glasses, girandoles, brackets, cornices and ceiling flowers (example, National Portrait Gallery records, Duplicate of Accounts, vol.2, p.41). In 1892 the business advertised its Art Frames, and that it made frames to artists' own drawings, also reproductions from old models in carving or composition, plate glass fitments for preservation of valuable pictures and a service for cleaning, lining and restoring pictures (The Year's Art 1892). In 1905 it was advertising as ‘Picture Frame Makers and Plate Glass Fitters to the National Gallery' (The Year's Art 1905).
Dolman framed various works by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (who had recommended the business to the National Gallery), including After the audience, 1879 (private coll.), A reading from Homer, 1885 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), and Alfred Waterhouse, 1891, stock no.24697 (National Portrait Gallery, repr. Simon 1996 p.178). Alma-Tadema is also known to have asked a client, Markham, to order a frame from Dolman for The Coliseum (probably Opus CCCCV, 1911, letter in Manchester Art Gallery archives, information from Lynn Roberts).
The business also framed works by Hubert von Herkomer, including The Last Muster: Sunday at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, 1875 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, see Morris 1994 p.53) and Sir George Goldie, 1898 (National Portrait Gallery, see Simon 1996 p.178). On the latter the label in red reads: 'This frame can be repeated at any time quoting the number 30.886 R. Dolman & Co. 6 New Compton St, Soho London W.C.' Most frames made by this business bear a five figure stock number.
The list of artists whose work was framed by Dolman can readily be extended. William Stott's Alps by Night, c.1892, has an unusual fluted frame, stock number 25181 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Much of John Brett's work was framed by Dolman to the artist's design, c.1875-95, in a standard pattern, stock no.24825 (see Ann Sumner, 'A Note on the Framing of John Brett's Welsh Seascapes', in John Brett: A Pre-Raphaelite on the Shores of Wales, exh.cat., National Museum of Wales, 2001, pp.116-7; see also Lynn Roberts, John Brett's Picture Frames, forthcoming on this website). Lucy Kemp-Welch records the delivery of a frame from Dolman for her Horses bathing in the sea in 1900 (National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, see Payne 2007 p.78).
As part of the Imperial War Museum's wider programme of framing work by war artists following the First World War, Dolman provided an estimate for framing a work by C.J. Holmes in 1919 (Imperial War Museum, bound papers, ‘First World War Frames'); the estimate paper gives the names of O.S. Dolman and A.P. Dolman as partners, namely Osmer Stafford Dolman (b.1854) and his brother Arthur Percy (1855-1922?), both born in Greenwich and both recorded in the 1911 census, living in Wandsworth and Croydon respectively. The Dolman business closed in 1919, when both partners were in their mid-sixties.
Sources: DEFM; Simon 1996 p.115 (for E.W. Cooke); E.W. Cooke ledger 1833-78, Royal Academy Library; John Munday, Edward William Cooke 1811-1880, Woodbridge, 1996, especially pp.228, 375-9; Edwin Becker et al., Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, exh.cat., Walker Art Gallery and elsewhere, 1997, especially nos 51 and 67, the works dating to 1879 and 1885, see above, which bear Dolman's label (information from Alex Kidson). For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
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