Annotated Bibliography of Frame Publications, 1995 to 2008 (Netherlands to United States)
Contents
General surveys
By country: Australia
By country: Britain and Ireland
By country: Flemish
By country: France
By country: Germany
By country: Italy
By country: Netherlands
By country: Russia
By country: Scandinavia: Denmark and Sweden
By country: Spain
By country: United States of America
Photographs, miniatures, pastels, prints and drawings
Technique and conservation
Individual collections
Baarsen, Reinier, 'Herman Doomer, ebony worker in Amsterdam', Burlington Magazine, vol.138, 1996, pp.739-49. On the work of Herman Doomer, a leading Amsterdam ebony worker who not only made cabinets and mirror frames but also produced picture frames. His portrait in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, was painted by Rembrandt in 1640, leading to speculation that he supplied Rembrandt with frames; his workshop may have produced frames for other painters who appear among a list of debtors in his widow's post-mortem inventory in 1678. The attribution to Doomer of a splendid cabinet in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, has led to the identification of another cabinet, with wavy mouldings and auricular detailing, at The Argory, a National Trust house in Northern Ireland, see Simon Jervis, 'Ebony at The Argory', Apollo, vol.147, April 1998, pp.42-4.
Baija, Hubert, ‘Een nieuwe lijst voor de Heilige Maagschap', Bulletin Van Het Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, vol.51, no.2, 2003, pp.139-44, 8 illustrations, 2 profile diagrams. Discusses the new frame made at the Rijksmuseum for a painting by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, with simple flat profile and inner gold rainsill moulding. Various previous frames are also illustrated, from the picture's appearance in a watercolour of 1838 by Gerrit Lamberts, through its later 19th-century frame with deep rainsill and colonettes, to a 20th-century neo-gothic frame.
Joosten, Joop M., ‘Framing Mondrian', unpublished paper given at the symposium, Modern Art in the Laboratory - Technical Examination and Art Historical Implications, held at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., USA, on 5 May 2001, and reviewed in Conservation News, no.76, November 2001, p.47. The review describes Joosten's detailed exposition of Mondrian's framing processes throughout his career.
Wheelock, Arthur K., ‘The Framing of a Vermeer', in Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger (eds), Collected Opinions: Essays on Netherlandish Art In Honour of Alfred Bader, Paul Holberton publishing, London, 2004, pp.232-9. On the use of cases as a setting for Dutch 17th-century paintings. Vermeer's Woman holding a Balance (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) was the only one of 26 works in an Amsterdam 1696 sale catalogue to be described as 'in a box'. In an exhibition of the work of Gerrit Dou held in a private house in Leiden in 1665, 22 out of 27 works were in cases. Such cases required the viewer to come close to the work to open the case doors, so establishing the viewer's position in relationship to the painting. The presentation and viewing of the work of other artists is discussed.
Lysenko, O.A., To Dress a Picture: Art and Frames in Russia from the Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Palace Editions, 2005, 167pp, 103 colour illustrations. (text in Russian; a separate German text-only translation is available). Produced to accompany the first exhibition of picture frames to be held in Russia; it comprises an introduction, chapters on each of the four centuries covered, a catalogue including details of the frames, frame makers' stamps and labels, a glossary and frame sections. Some of the frames are made from bronze, silver or rare woods.
SCANDINAVIA: DENMARK AND SWEDEN
Barkman, Carl, ‘... med glas och förgyld bildhuggeriram' (The frames used for Lundberg's pastels), in Merit Laine and Carolina Brown, Gustaf Lundberg, 1695-1786: En porträttmålare och hans tid, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 2006, pp.226-33, in Swedish with English summary p.245, numerous illlustrations, some in colour. References to frames are scattered through the book, with various framed works illustrated including a trophy frame for Lundberg's portrait of Gustav III and a drawing of another trophy frame. The authors note two signed frames from the 1770s by an employee of the carver Gustaf Johan Fast, and that frames might be commissioned by the client (in 1728 von Gedda commissioned Louis XIV frames from the French carver Vassé for two Lundberg portraits).
Bjerre, Henrik, et al., Frames: State of the art, exh.cat., Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2008, 247pp, copiously illustrated throughout, mainly in colour; separate editions in Danish and English. This is a wide-ranging work, containing pioneering essays on the Danish Royal collections (including acquisitions from a Gonzaga cardinal, gallery framings and looking-glass frames); a chapter on the 19th-century court gilder Damborg; and a short section on the innovative frames of 19th-century Danish artists, from the Neoclassicist designer N.A. Abilgaard to the Arts and Crafts frames of the Slott-Mǿllers. The historical and modernist essays have little new to say about the development of frames from the middle ages and during the 20th century, and the omission of any consideration of Danish altarpieces is unfortunate: Abel Schrǿder is dismissed in half a sentence. There is interest in the discussion and illustration of early frames (of various nationalities) from Danish collections, where they may not previously have been published; and much more in the final emergence of national styles into the discussion with the treatment of Régence and Rococo frames.
The chapter on the Danish Royal collections is fascinating, chequered with war, looting and fires; survivals and decorative schemes outside the Statens Museum are mentioned, but not fully illustrated. Early histories and inventories fill out the losses, noting the use of coloured and even embroidered frames in the 17th century, along with ripple frames and glazing. The section on Cardinal Silvio Gonzaga's collection is treated imaginatively, by including G.P. Panini's painting of the collection as a gallery capriccio, with an Ortolano shown on one wall apparently in the ‘Salvator Rosa' frame with arched spandrels in which it still, perhaps, remains; whilst the several reframings of a Mantegna from the same collection are noted and illustrated. Period reframings of the Royal collections generally are examined historically and philosophically, and the designers, collectors and museum curators associated with them are noted.
Another chapter deals with collections in Frederiksborg and, particularly, Rosenborg Castles. These include early looking-glasses, 17th-century Mannerist and Baroque Danish frames, trophy and gold wire frames, and pierced brass. Entries from inventories and account books fill out the history of these idiosyncratic objects. This is followed by an essay on techniques, court practice, workshop organization, design and style, and the 19th-century exploitation of composition, as seen through the career of the court framemaker and gilder, Peder Christian Damborg (1801-65), and as expressed through his own manuscript on gilding.
The chapter on 19th-century artists' frames commences with a rapid canter through the various schools, from Caspar David Friedrich to the Nazarenes, Pre-Raphaelites, Post-Impressionists and Secessionists. It comes alive with a discussion of frames designed by Danish artists: Kǿbke, Skovgaard, Marstrand, Paulsen, the Slott-Mǿllers and J.F. Willumsen, and by the framemaker Valdemar Kleis and the architect Thorvald Bindesbǿll.
A chapter on technique through the last four hundred years describes gilding by means of French 18th-century terms. It discusses veneering and ripple frames, and notes the use of lacquer (‘aventurine lacquer' seems to have been specific to the court of Frederik IV), and the coming of ‘mass-production' materials and practices.
Note: The exhibition of the same title, for which this is the companion book rather than the catalogue, has been reviewed by Nicholas Penny: ‘Frames: Copenhagen', Burlington Magazine, vol.150, September 2008, pp.635-37, 4 illustrations. This provides an interesting counterpoint to the various chapters of the book, the themes and areas they treat being seen in the light of the actual frames hung in the exhibition.
Sotheby's, Old Master Paintings from the collection of Gustav Adolf Sparre (1746-1794), sale catalogue, London, 5 December 2007. Each lot in this sale is illustrated with a coloured thumbnail of the painting in its frame, underlining the coherence of this collection made in the late 18th century by a Swedish aristocrat and connoisseur, which was framed for him mainly in four types of neo-classical Gustavian carved giltwood frames. The design of these may be attributable to the Swedish court architect Jean Eric Rehn; their execution possibly to the sculptor Gustaf Johan Fast. Where earlier frames (17th-century Italian; a French Chérinesque design) survive, they were regilded to blend in with the collection.
SPAIN
García, Francisco Herrera, ‘En los Márgenes del Cuadro: El Marco en la Sevilla Barroca', pp.109-27, in Domingo Martínez: en la Estela de Murillo, exh. cat., Centro Cultural el Monte, Seville, 2004. On picture frames in the Baroque style in Seville from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, with 10 illustrations; there are other colour illustrations of framed paintings distributed through the catalogue. The essay applies a quotation from Ortega y Gasset's meditation on frames, that a painting without a frame is like a man despoiled of his clothes, to some of the most striking examples of Baroque carving in Seville; it includes details of some carvers and gilders, notably Jose Fernando Medinilla, and the price of their work. The catalogue also contains a 1751 inventory of Martínez's possessions, including frames.
Tiemblo, María Pía Timón, Coleccion Cano de P.E.A., El Marco Espanol en la Historia del Arte. The Spanish Frame in the History of Art, P.E.A., S.A., Madrid, no date, 1998 or 1999, 109pp, 85 colour illustrations, 46 frame sections. A useful well-illustrated survey of Spanish frames, published by the Madrid frame firm P.E.A. in Spanish with an English translation, and based on the collection of the Cano frame workshop, founded in 1907 and acquired by P.E.A. in 1994. The introduction reproduces eight frames made by the Cano workshops for the Prado museum including those on works by Raphael, Titian, Velazquez, Zurburan and Goya. A short section of illustrations reproducing decorative techniques is followed by corner details and sections of 46 frames in current production, ranging from mediaeval to 19th-century models.
Tiemblo, María Pía Timón, El marco en España: del mundo romano al inicio del modernismo, Humanes, Publicaciones Europeas de Arte, Madrid, 2002, 394pp. A substantial illustrated survey of Spanish frames, albeit with rather inadequate illustrations.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
See also PHOTOGRAPHS under Burns and Schneider
Adair, William B., ‘The American Empire Frame', Picture Framing Magazine, vol.10, August 1999, pp.108-17, 20 illustrations. Fully illustrated account of the conservation and reproduction of a neo-classical frame made for the North Carolina state capitol building by Horton & Waller of Philadelphia in 1841 to house a lithograph, ‘Canova's Statue of General George Washington'.
Adair, William B., ‘Max Kuehne Frames', Picture Framing Magazine, vol.12, May 2001, pp.56-62, 6 colour illustrations. Summary discussion of the life and work of Max Kuehne (1880-1968), a leading American craftsman framemaker.
Barry, Claire M., ‘Swimming by Thomas Eakins: Its Construction, Condition, and Restoration', in Doreen Bolger and Sarah Cash (eds.), Thomas Eakins and the Swimming Picture, exh. cat., Amon Carter Museum, Texas, 1996, pp.111-2, 116, repr. in colour on cover. On the rediscovery of the artist's original gilt renaissance-revival frame, of a pattern found on one other work by Eakins of the 1880s.
Gomez-Rhine, Traude, ‘Framed again: A Frederic Church landscape returns to the perfect setting', Huntington Frontiers, Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, Fall/Winter 2006, pp.4-8, 4 illustrations. On the reframing of Chimborazo by Frederic Edwin Church in a replica of its original frame, designed by Church, confirmed as the original by photographs of the painting in c.1865-70, and copied from an identical frame on Church's Vale of St Thomas, Jamaica.
Holton, Timothy, ‘Hidden in plain view: An appreciation of the oak frame tradition', Style: 1900 Magazine, Winter 2008, vol.21, no.4, pp.46-53, 14 illustrations. Discusses the historic use of oak for early portable frames, its replacement in the 17th century by fruitwoods, and its revival during the Arts and Crafts movement (quoting M.H. Baillie Scott and early 20th-century American articles). A page from a 1912 Canadian framemaker's catalogue is reproduced.
Kornhauser, Stephen, and Ulrich Birkmaier, ‘Marsden Hartley's materials and working methods', in Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser (ed.), Marsden Hartley, 2002, including a short section, ‘Notes on Frames', pp.274-6. Hartley's signature mouldings, developed while he was in Paris and Berlin, were used in his frames with understated, flat, softwood mouldings, similar to frame liners, usually less than 1¾ins wide and less than 1in deep. These were finished with white paint or gesso, or sometimes polychromed with a continuation of the design of the painting; three such frames dating to c.1914 are reproduced as pl.13-15, including The Aero (National Gallery of Art, Washington). From 1937-40 Hartley exhibited with the dealer, Hudson Walker, who negotiated with the artist to exhibit his works in more massive frames, which Walker provided, using the New York frame dealer, Henry Heydenryk (fig.20 shows three of these mouldings). Many of these frames were made from a wormy chestnut wood, with a grey antiqued finish, which became known as ‘Hartley Decape Finish'.
Additional to this discussion, one might add that in the late 1940s Heydenryk's published catalogue (The House of Heydenryk, 1948 or later, 36pp) gave prominence to Hartley, reproducing two frames, one a ‘Iorgy handcarved Renaissance Breughel in Iorgy finish with double insert' on Marsden's Fish (Iorgy was ‘a mellow gessoed bleached grey white finish with the suggestion of delicate tints of green and black'), the other, Model 385, a notched design in old chestnut with a textured finish, ‘sometimes called Hartley moulding because of Hartley's predilection for this design', also featuring the ‘Hartley Silver Decape', with silver flecks.
Kramer, Hilton, John Marin: The painted frame, exh.cat., Richard York Gallery, New York, 2000, 78pp, illustrated in colour throughout. Includes a brief essay on the work of the American modernist artist, John Marin (1870-1953), with quotations by Marin making up each catalogue entry. The exhibition focuses on watercolours and oil paintings which use framing devices, such as containing lines or decorative borders painted on the work, and wooden frames made and painted by the artist.
Smith, Erika Jaeger, Carved, Incised, Gilded and Burnished: The Bucks County Framemaking Tradition, exh. cat., James A. Michener Art Museum, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 2000, unpaginated, copiously illustrated. A brief history of frames and a note on the European Arts and Crafts Movement, leading to an examination of local Arts and Crafts frames, and specific artists and framemakers working in Bucks County.
Vazquez, Anne, three articles in Picture Framing Magazine, vol.12: ‘American frames: 1900-1950', March 2001, pp.74-82, 10 illustrations; ‘American frames: The 1950s', May 2001, pp.28-32, 3 illustrations; ‘American frames: The 1960s', July 2001, pp.44-6, 3 illustrations. Summary discussion of period styles with basic information on framemakers.
Wilner, Eli and Mervyn Kaufman, Antique American Frames. Identification and Price Guide, Avon Books, New York, 1995, 228pp, numerous illustrations, 19 in colour. A popular paperback history and collectors guide, covering the period 1800-1939.
Wilner, Eli (ed.), The Gilded Edge: The Art of the Frame, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, 203pp, 151 illustrations mainly in colour, 17 line drawings. Ten essays on various aspects of framing in America, including a section on aesthetics and history, a consideration of artist designed frames such as those by Whistler, Thomas Eakins, and Stanford White, and three essays on museum framing at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Wilson, Kristina, ‘The Intimate Gallery and the Equivalents: Spirituality in the 1920s Work of Stieglitz', Art Bulletin, vol.85, 2003, pp.765-7. On Alfred Stieglitz's photographs and the work of artists such as Georgia O'Keefe and Marsden Hartley which he displayed in his Intimate Gallery, New York. The framing and hang of these exhibitions are noted, and for Hartley's frames the reader is referred to pp.265-77 in Elizabeth M. Kornhauser (ed.), Marsden Hartley: American Modernist, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2003, Yale University Press.
PHOTOGRAPHS, MINIATURES, PASTELS, PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
Baker, Christopher, ‘The Prince, his tutor, and a rare portrait print: William Markham by James Heath', British Art Journal, vol.2, no.3, 2001, pp.36-8, 4 illustrations. On an early 19th-century engraving by Heath and its remarkable contemporary neo-classical trophy frame.
Bell, Nancy (ed.), Historic Framing and Presentation of Watercolours, Drawings and Prints (proceedings of conference held 1996), Institute of Paper Conservation, Leigh, Worcester, 1997, 57pp, 68 black and white illustrations. Six essays including David Alexander on the framing of English prints in the 18th century, Thea Burns on the framing of European pastels in the early 18th century, and Helen Dorey on framing at the Soane Museum.
Burns, Stanley B., Forgotten Marriage: The Painted Tintype & The Decorative Frame 1860-1910, The Burns Press, New York, 1995, 220pp, numerous illustrations. A fascinating survey of popular American photograph frames.
Hannavy, John, Case Histories: The Packaging and Presentation of the Photographic Portrait in Victorian Britain 1840-1875, Antique Collectors' Club, 2005, 144pp. This work, copiously illustrated in colour from the author's collection, is an exhaustive and informative consideration of portable daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, etc, and the elaborate frames and cases which were produced to contain them. The factories, processes, workers and materials, including metal, lacquerwork, leather and early versions of plastics, are dealt with in detail. The last chapter, ‘The Family Album and the Framed Portrait', discusses the larger and more traditional wood or plaster frames made for non-portable photographs.
Holton, Timothy, ‘Close-framed Photographs', Picture Framing Magazine, October 2007, pp.62-6, 8 colour illustrations. Discusses a revival of the Arts and Crafts practice of framing photos and photogravures without a mount (or ‘mat'), usually in stained/ polished wood, and thus unifying more completely the image and its frame, and the whole work with its setting.
Hopkinson, Martin, 'The Lithographs of Whistler', Print Quarterly, vol.16, 1999, pp.87-8. A review of the 1998 exhibition of Whistler lithographs at the Art Institute of Chicago, reproducing an impression of Yellow House, Lannion, in its original frame, designed by Whistler. All the lithographs were exhibited in frames based on this example.
Hopkinson, Martin, ‘Whistler's First One-man Show in Venice', Print Quarterly, vol.19, March 2002, pp.63-4, 1 illustration. On a Whistler etching in its original frame designed by the artist.
McKechnie, Sue, British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, 1978, pp.34-40, 48-51. An excellent survey of frame styles used for silhouettes, omitted from the bibliography in The Art of Picture Frame.
Mason, Pippa, 'The Framing and Display of Watercolours', Watercolours from Leeds City Art Gallery, exh. cat., Leeds City Art Gallery, 1995, pp.28-38, 5 illustrations. An excellent short survey of historical practice in framing watercolours.
Romanelli, Marco et al., Intorno alla fotografia: 37 cornici per 37 fotografi, Paris, Association Jacqueline Vodoz et Bruno Danese, exh. cat., 1998, 103pp, many illustrations. Short introductory essays followed by 36 photographs and their frames, of an arty or conceptual nature, described as follows in the publication itself: ‘Around photography presents a reflection on the relation between the image and frame, with twosomes linking photographers known for their original creativity to some of the most problematical contemporary designers. The result is a collection of unprecedented, one-off works. In it each photographic suggestion is reconsidered through the eyes of a designer and a "frame"'.
Schneider, Stuart, Collecting Picture and Photo Frames, Schiffer books, Atglen, PA, 1998, 176pp, fully illustrated in colour. Popular American photograph, print and miniature frames from 1840 to 1940.
Simon, Jacob, 'The production, framing and care of English pastel portraits in the eighteenth century', The Paper Conservator, vol.22, 1998, pp.10-20, 7 illustrations.
Simon, Jacob, see National Portrait Gallery - Oxford frames
Ablett, Annie, three articles in The Picture Restorer: ‘The Frame: Its Purpose to Protect', no.17, Spring 2000, pp.13-16 and no.18, Autumn 2000, pp.9-11; ‘The Frame: Its Purpose to Enhance', no.21, Spring 2002, pp.9-12. On problems in conserving historic frames and in maintaining their ornamental appearance in relationship to the painting.
Battison, Clair, '"Natural Born Quillers" - conservation of paper quills on the Sarah Siddons plaque frame', V&A Conservation Journal, no.27, April 1998, pp.8-10.
Baya, Hubert, 'Gilding in the Dutch Golden Age', Painting Techniques. History, Materials and Studio Practice. Summaries of the Posters at the Dublin Congress, 7-11 September 1998, International Institute for Conservation, 1998, unpaginated. A one-page review of research into a distinctive gilding technique used on some Dutch frames in the second half of the 17th century.
Child, Robert, ‘ Woodworm in Picture Frames', The Picture Restorer, no.22, Autumn 2002, pp.14-15.
English Heritage, Gilding: Approaches to Treatment. A joint conference of English Heritage and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, 27-28 September 2000, English Heritage, 2001, 84 pp, 66 illustrations. With essays by Louisa Davey on framing at the National Gallery, Sarah Staniforth on frame conservation in National Trust houses, and John Anderson on framing solutions at the Tate Gallery.
Falck-Therkelsen, Solveig, 'The Restoration of Seven Watts Frames at the Tate Gallery', Conservation News. The Official Newsletter of UKIC, no.65, March 1998, pp.34-6.
Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson, ‘On Framing', in chapter 6, ‘Beyond the Painting,' in Seeing through Paintings: physical examination in art historical studies, Yale University Press, 2000, pp.246-53, 8 illustrations. A summary of the genesis and design of simple engaged and polyptych frames, jumping to a brief discussion of the artist's involvement in frame design during the 19th and 20th centuries, and to questions of reframing by collectors or by museums. With a short bibliography on the history, technical approach to and philosophical consideration of the frame.
McClure, Ian, 'The Framing of Wooden Panels', in Kathleen Dardes and Andrea Rothe (eds), The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, proceedings of a symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995, The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, 1998, pp.433-47. A profusely illustrated volume, well-organised but for the lack of an index, surveying the history of panel making in Europe, as well as current and past conservation practices. McClure's is the key essay on the problems encountered in the framing of panels but there are useful contributions by other authors on pp.129, 272 and 349 and by Wadum (see BY COUNTRY: FLEMISH in this bibliography.
Marsland-Boyer, Victoria and Adriano Lorenzelli, 'The Picture Frame in Context and the Art of Gilding' in Philippa Vaughan (ed.), The Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta: Conception, Collections, Conservation, Marg Publishing, Mumbai, India, 1997. A study of the conservation of frames on British pictures at the Victoria Memorial Hall, reproducing seven frames dating from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century.
Powell, Christine, 'Some French and English Gilding Techniques: The making and gilding of an 18th century English-style mirror frame with tooled gesso work', SSCR Journal, The Quarterly News Magazine of the Scottish Society for Conservation and Restoration, vol.9, no.4, 1998, pp.5-14. A detailed study comparing modern French gilding techniques, as used in making a mirror frame, to Watin and other 17th and 18th-century publications on gilding.
Rose, Jenny, 'An Investigation into the Domestic Care of Paintings in English Country Houses in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', in Christine Sitwell and Sarah Staniforth (eds), Studies in the History of Paintings Restoration, Archetype Publications, London, 1998, pp.139-80. Including references to the care of picture frames in domestic and artistic manuals of the period.
Sawicki, Malgorzata, 'Picture Frame Conservation or... Repairing?' AICCM (Inc) Bulletin, Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials (Inc), vol.20, no.2, 1995, pp.17-25. Philosophical issues are discussed relating to three case studies: the conservation of the frame of Chaucer at the court of Edward III by Ford Madox Brown, exhibited 1851, the restoration of the frame of Summertime by Rupert Bunny, exhibited 1907, and the reproduction of a frame for Diogenes by John Waterhouse, 1882.
Sawicki, Malgorzata, ‘The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon by Edward Poynter, 1884-1890. The frame revisited', AICCM (Inc) Bulletin, vol.22, 1997-8. A detailed discussion of the conservation of a gilded frame for a very large work by Poynter, including the identification and removal of over-painting, and in-gilding and in-painting experiments using non-traditional gilding techniques.
Schmuecker, Emma, ‘The use and identification of traditional techniques and materials for the conservation and restoration of picture frames', The Picture Restorer, no.21, Spring 2002, pp.13-17, 5 figures. On the conflicts inherent in stabilizing a frame without irreversibly altering its construction, appearance or evidence of its history, describing the various materials traditionally used in the decoration of frames.
Stoner, Joyce Hill, ‘Whistler's views on the restoration and display of his paintings,' Studies in Conservation, vol.42, 1997, pp.107-14, 6 illustrations. On Whistler's techniques and the effects he wished to achieve, including a brief section on his approach to framing; while not new, this does list those frames gilded and sometimes painted directly on the wood, and which have not been subsequently regilded.
Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire: see National Portrait Gallery - A Guide to Picture Frames at Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie: Hannelore Nützmann (ed), Schöne Rahmen: Aus den Beständen der Berliner Gemäldegalerie, exh. cat., Berlin, 2002, 85pp, copiously illustrated.
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie: Bettina von Roenne, Ein Architekt rahmt Bilder: Karl Friedrich Schinkel und die Berliner Gemäldegalerie, exh. cat., Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 2007 (see above, By country: Germany).
Britain, Royal Collection: Lucy Whitaker and Jonathan Marsden, ‘Re-framing the Royal Pictures: Episodes in the history of royal taste', Apollo, vol.156, September 2002, pp.50-6, 12 colour illustrations. Notes a few surviving original frames on the works of George Stubbs, Benjamin West, David Wilkie and Thomas Lawrence, among others, and descriptions of others in inventories. Also describes reframing, often of groups of pictures, from the reign of Charles I, through those of William III and George IV, to that of Victoria. The architects and framemakers involved are mentioned, together with the costs. With an appendix describing frames in the Golden Jubilee exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in 2002-3.
Brooklyn Museum of Art: Hilarie M Sheets, ‘An Impressionist Frame of Mind', ARTNews, November 2003, pp.104-8, 4 colour figs. On the recent reframing of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. For paintings by Caillebotte and Degas, their own frame designs were reproduced; for a Matisse and a Monet more radical optical solutions were created.
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts: Nancy Rivard Shaw, ‘ Marriages, Divorces, and Reconciliations. Challenges in Framing a Museum Collection', in Eli Wilner (ed.), The Gilded Edge: The Art of the Frame, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, pp.178-93, 14 illustrations. A survey of the framing and reframing of works in the American collection at the Detroit.
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie: Christoph Schölzel, ‘Der Dresdener Galerierahmen Geschichte, Technik, Restaurierung', ZKK: Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung, vol.16, 2002, pp.104-29, 34 illustrations. Considers the 18th-century livery or gallery frames in the Gëmaldegalerie, Dresden, together with their makers, construction and restoration.
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie: Christoph Schölzel (ed.), Die Blendenden Rahmen: Der Dresdener Galerierahmen, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2005, 47pp, 53 illustrations, and construction diagrams (catalogue of an exhibition of ‘Dresden gallery frames' held at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister to coincide with the Dresden conference on frames in 2005). Introduced by Harald Marx, it includes essays by Christoph Schölzel on the construction and restoration of the frames, by Karin Mühlbauer on their gilding and finish, and by Tania Korntheuer-Wardak on the coloured boles used. The Dresden gallery frames were made originally to the designs of Matthias Kugler in the 1760s and Joseph Diebel in the 1770s, and continued to be produced throughout the 19th century. They were used on every genre and period of painting in the Gemäldegalerie, from works by Titian and Garofalo to those by Brueghel and Rembrandt, and include a trophy variant on a pastel by Liotard.
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie: see also National Portrait Gallery - Dresden Gallery Frames
England, Northwick Collection: Oliver Bradbury and Nicholas Penny, ‘The picture collecting of Lord Northwick: Part II', Burlington Magazine, vol.144, 2002, pp.606-17, 19 illustrations. On Northwick's building and furnishing around the 1840s of the picture gallery at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham and his employment of two London framemakers, Henry George Eckford and Henry Haynes.
England and Ireland, Cobbe Collection: Alec Cobbe, ‘The framing and restoration of the Historic Cobbe Collection', in Alastair Laing (ed.), Clerics & Connoisseurs: The Rev. Matthew Pilkington, the Cobbe Family and the Fortunes of an Irish Art Collection through Three Centuries, English Heritage, 2001, pp.74-9, 24 illustrations. From the book accompanying the exhibition at Kenwood House, London; a study of the framing of this 18th-century Irish collection, based on family account books, surviving labels, and comparison of the various frame of styles.
France, Cardinal Mazarin: Patrick Michel, Mazarin, Prince de Collectionneurs, Notes et documents des musees de France, no.34, Paris 1999, pp.396-7, on ‘Le format et le cadre'. It is not possible to speak of a uniform Mazarin frame. The 1661 Mazarin inventory reveals at least four main frame types: giltwood frames, most commonly found on historical, mythological and religious subjects, black frames ornamented with gilt fillets, most commonly found on 16th-century portraits, marbled frames and ebony frames. Michel identifies the use of simple giltwood mouldings and, exceptionally, some richer frame as for Bernardino's Luini's Nativity in 1644. The relative simplicity and sobriety of most of Mazarin's picture frames contrasted with the richness of those used to frame his mosaics. Clearly the Cardinal took an interest in the framing of his pictures, as is indicated in his correspondence in 1658, when he asked to be told which pictures lacked frames at all and which pictures were not in gilded frames. Some pictures came into the collection with their original frames such as Guercino's David and Abigail which kept its frame bearing the Barberini coat of arms. Other Italian acquisitions were framed in Italy for the Cardinal, apparently in Rome, with payments being made to gilders such as Pietro Paolo Giorgetti, Francesco Amati and Ascanio Bavigrine. Michel provides no account of actual surviving frames.
Florence, Palazzo Pitti: Marilena Mosco and Edit Revai (eds), Cornici Barocche e Stampe. Restaurate dai Depositi di Palazzo Pitti, exh. cat., Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1998, published by Sillabe s.r.l., Livorno, pp.8-17, 24-47, 94-5. Ten fine 17th and early 18th-century Florentine frames are catalogued, with an introductory essay by Mosco, extracts from contemporary inventories (prepared by Jennifer Celani) and a bibliography; a welcome contribution to our understanding of Florentine auricular and baroque frames and the riches of the historic Palazzo Pitti collections.
Florence, Palazzo Pitti: see BY COUNTRY: ITALY, under Mosco, Marilena
Knole, Kent: see National Portrait Gallery - A Guide to Picture Frames at Knole, Kent
Leeds, Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall: Christopher Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, Leeds 1998, vol.3, pp.642-3, 726-7. Updating Gilbert's two-volume 1978 catalogue, notably reproducing a compo frame made by the London framemaker, Alexander Miller, for a printed speech of the Duke of York in c.1825.
London, Foundling Hospital: see National Portrait Gallery - Picture frames at the Foundling Museum, London
London, National Gallery: Lorne Campbell, National Gallery Catalogues. The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish School, London, 1998, p.29. This excellent catalogue discusses and illustrates the frames on seven pictures which retain their original frames, two of which are integral, one partly integral and partly applied and four engaged; the catalogue also provides evidence, chiefly relating to colour, as to the appearance of the lost original frames of another ten pictures.
London, National Gallery: Louisa Davey, ‘Framing at the National Gallery', in Gilding: Approaches to Treatment. A joint conference of English Heritage and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, 27-28 September 2000, English Heritage, 2001, pp.47-52, 6 illustrations. On framing policy at the National Gallery, including the reframing of works by Turner.
London, National Gallery: National Gallery Review of the Year: April 2007 to March 2008, 2008, pp.24-8, 8 illustrations, also pp.42-3. The review includes a brief report on reframing in period settings undertaken by the Gallery in 2006 and 2007 (Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks, Morales' Virgin and Child, Carracci's Marriage of the Virgin and two works by Chardin). Reproductions are also noted, including, for example, the Gothic altarpiece frame created for Matteo di Giovanni's Assumption of the Virgin, so that it could be displayed in the exhibition Renaissance Siena: Art for a City in a structure which united it with the original side panels. A list of period and reproduction reframings in 2007-8 is followed by a section on the ‘Study of the original polychromy of Italian Renaissance frames', made in collaboration with conservators from the V&A Museum, and focusing on the late 15th-century Tuscan frame now on The Virgin and Child with an Angel by an imitator of Filippo Lippi.
London, National Gallery, see National Portrait Gallery - Framing Italian Renaissance Paintings at the National Gallery, London
London, Soane Museum: Helen Dorey, ‘The Historic Framing and Presentation of Watercolours, Drawings and Prints at Sir John Soane's Museum', in Nancy Bell (ed.), Historic Framing and Presentation of Watercolours, Drawings and Prints (proceedings of conference held 1996), Institute of Paper Conservation, Leigh, Worcester, 1997, pp.20-31, 21 black and white illustrations.
London, National Gallery: Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, vol.1, Paintings from Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona, National Gallery, London, 2004.
London, Tate Gallery: John Anderson, ‘Dip and strip, not quite but almost', in Gilding: Approaches to Treatment. A joint conference of English Heritage and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, 27-28 September 2000, English Heritage, 2001, pp.59-66, 6 illustrations. On framing treatment at the Tate Gallery, focusing on four case studies.
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria: see BY COUNTRY: AUSTRALIA, under Payne, John
Munich, Pfefferle collection: Christian Burchard, ‘Bilderrahmen, Sprache der Ornamente: Beispiele aus der Sammlung Pfefferle, München', Barockberichte: Informationsblätter des Salzburger Barockmuseums zur bildenden Kunst des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, no.24/25, 1999, pp.397-412. Illustrates 27 frames in colour from the Pfefferle collection of French, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch frames shown at the Salzburg Barockmuseum.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Carrie Rebora Barratt, ‘American Frames in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Choices and Changes', in Eli Wilner (ed.), The Gilded Edge: The Art of the Frame, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, pp.156-77, 18 illustrations. A report on the Metropolitan Museum's survey of frames in the American collection.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum: Timothy Newbery, Frames and Framings in the Ashmolean Museum, Ashmolean Museum, 2002 (so dated but published 2003), 80pp, 37 colour illustrations plus frame sections. With a brief introduction on the history of frames, this instructive booklet catalogues thirty-four of the most notable frames in the museum, describing their style, construction and finish, encompassing examples ranging from 14th-century Italy to 20th-century Britain. Reviewed by Jacob Simon, The Art Newspaper, May 2003.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum: Timothy Newbery, ‘Appendix of Original Frames in the Ashmolean Museum', in The Ashmolean Museum: Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Paintings, Catherine Casley et al. (eds), Oxford, 2004, pp.293-6. A listing of frames on works in the museum considered to be broadly original to those works, with a single line description, place of origin, date, together with the title of the work, artist, date (if different from that of the frame) and accession number. Such a list is of great interest, especially because of the number of frames identified as original or possibly original, but frustrating because of its brevity.
Oxford, Christ Church: Christopher Baker, ‘Framing Fox-Strangways', Journal of the History of Collections, vol.17, no.1, 2005, pp.73-84, 19 figs. On the Italian Renaissance collections of the Hon. William Fox-Strangways, presented to Christ Church and the Ashmolean Museum in 1828, 1834 and 1850. Many of these paintings retain the frames in which they were presented: original integral or engaged frames, 19th-century architrave ‘gallery' frames, or a radically simplified flat border with inscribed cartouche. The Christ Church frames also bear Fox-Strangways' initials on the top right-hand corner, identifying the two bequests of 1828 and 1834. Fox-Strangways's reframing of Bronzino's Giovanni de' Medici in a Mannerist frame decorated by Francesco Salviati is also noted.
Paris, Frits Lugt: Esther Scholten, 'L'oeuvre d'art et son cadre: Des cadres de la Collection Frits Lugt', in Cadres revisités: Chefs-d'oeuvres de la photographie néerlandaise présentés dans les cadres anciens de la Collection Frits Lugt, exh. cat., Fondation Custodia, Paris, 2005, pp.53-71. The catalogue (in French) of an exhibition of contemporary portrait photographs, displayed in French, Italian, Spanish and German frames from the 15th to the 18th century, with an accompanying essay and a short appendix at the back, cataloguing the frames themselves, 26 in number. The essay covers well-trod ground but with interesting references, for example to the early display of framed drawings and to Ingres's preference in 1840 for a frame for his Odalisque as wide and as baroque as possible, to be in the Turkish style (‘du turc').
Rome, Corsini Collection: Maria Letizia Papini, L'ornamento della pittura. Cornici, arredo e disposizione della Collezione Corsini di Roma nel XVIII secolo, Nuova Argos Edizioni Srl, Rome, 1998, especially pp.101-20. With a chapter on frames in the Corsini collection, an appendix of payments to framemakers from 1731 to 1780 and a section of black-and-white plates reproducing 32 frames. This excellent survey of one of the major Roman collections, much of which is on public display in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in the Palazzo Corsini, documents the dominant use of Salvator Rosa frames (usually called Carlo Maratta frames by the British) in the 18th century, and the use of cassetta and more elaborate models in the 17th century. Documentation from inventories and 18th-century framing bills are married to surviving frames. Some pictures were acquired with their frames, e.g. Carlo Maratta's oval Holy Family. The book also discusses the formation and the hanging of the collection.
USA: Daniel B. Schneider, ‘The Frame-Up', ARTnews, vol.99, February 2000, pp.142-7, 10 illustrations. A journalist surveys American museum attitudes to period framing of their collections, focusing on the Cone bequest of Matisses at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art at Washington, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
USA, Dicke Collection: Todd D. Smith (ed.), American Art from the Dicke Collection, exh. cat., Dayton Art Institute, Ohio, 1997, with essay by Eli Wilner, 'The Frame is the Soul of the Painting: Period Frames in the Dicke Collection'. A recent example of reframing using period frames.
USA, General Services Administration: Gretchen Goodell, Historic Frames in the Fine Arts Collection, US General Services Administration (Fine Arts Program) and International Institute for Frame Study, 1999, unpaginated. A basic survey of some framed works from the 1930s and 1940s belonging to the General Services Administration collection, based on frame record sheets, organized by accession number, and indexed by artist. It is illustrated in black-and-white, with two to three illustrations to each work; the text comprises basic technical and conservation information.
USA, Justine Simoni: The Art of the Frame: Gems from the Simoni Collection, exh. cat., Pensacola Museum of Art, Florida, 2004, 47pp, 27 colour illustrations. A survey of 22 American frames from the collection of Justine Simoni, with catalogue entries by Suzanne Smeaton; these include several frames by well-known American framemakers including Stanford White, Foster Brothers, Newcomb-Macklin Company, Charles Prendergast and Walfred Thulin.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: David Park Curry, ‘ What's in a Frame?', in Eli Wilner (ed.), The Gilded Edge: The Art of the Frame, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2000, pp.134-55, 17 illustrations. A survey of attitudes to framing and reframing the American collection at the Virginia Museum.
Annotated Bibliography of Frame Publications, 1995 to 2008 (Australia to Italy)
