The Frame Blog

An auction,  ‘Mobilier & Objets d’Art‘, will be held in Paris by Artcurial in two sessions, on Tuesday and Wednesday 17^th and 18^th June 2025. It comprises an eclectic group of 416 lots, with amongst them a number of striking antique picture frames, looking-glass frames, and picture frames which have been converted to hold looking-glasses.

The e-catalogue is available here.

Lot 3: a Northern Mannerist carved and pierced oak frame from the South Netherlands or Germany; c.1680; with an armorial crest of a wild man mounted on a helmet displayed against a giant fanned lambrequin, with festoons of bunches of grapes and vine leaves cascading on either side from plinths at the upper corners, the apron inscribed ‘Johan Philip Wildeman’; 65 x 43 cm.; estimate: €3,000-5,000

The catalogue entry connects the three-dimensional scrolls and clasps used here to engraved designs by or after Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1606?); for example, the title-page of Theatrum vitae humane, Antwerp, 1600. Given how rapidly printed illustrations were diffused through 16^th century Europe, they may also be influenced by Luca Penni’s slightly softer designs, etched by Jean Mignon, which reproduce the stuccowork frames and their paintings in the Château de Fontainebleau: for example, a print of the Pietà in the British Museum (1540-55), which employs a pierced scrolled oval, fanned lambrequins, similar bunched festoons of fruit and the head of a Green Man. Perhaps Johan Wildeman was a vintner or a wine merchant…?

Lot 23: a French Rococo carved and pierced giltwood looking-glass with a mirrored border contained between two runs of shaped and cusped ribbon-bound fasces decorated with foliate scrolling and shell-like forms; the arched top decorated with a ovolo chain moulding and surmounted by an asymmetric cartouche set in a pierced rocaille and crowned with a pomegranate flower, with trails of smaller flowers descending on either side; the foliate scrolls ornamented with smaller pomegranate flowers and roses-à-tiges; the base with a pierced asymmetric rocaille and further flowers; the central mirrored plates later; 186 x 116 cm.; estimate: €3,000-5,000

Lot 44: a pair of mid-18^th century German (?) Rococo carved and pierced giltwood pier glasses; with slender lateral columns mounted on scrolling plinths and wound with flowering vines, the capitals supporting pierced and scrolling asymmetric frontons ornamented with watery rocailles and flowers; the base formed of large shell-shaped rocailles and strung with flowers; the sides terminating in three-dimensional scrolling and pierced ‘feet’; 270 x 100 cm.; restored and regilded; estimate: €10,000-15,000

Lot 56: described as a French Régence looking-glass frame, this is more likely to be a Louis XIV updating of a Louis XIII pattern; an arched-top and shouldered picture frame for a sacred work, possibly a Crucifixion, and dating from the late 17^thcentury; of carved giltwood with later mirrored plate, the green lacquered finish also possibly later, it has a torus profile with an ovolo chain at the back edge; the torus decorated with strapwork and flowers on a cross-hatched ground, and centred on each rail with scrolled, foliate and flowered clasps; with applied leaf-&-shell straps concealing the mitres; with undulating strapwork and leaf buds on a cross-hatched ground at the sight edge; 165 x 114 cm.; estimate: €4,000-6,000

Lot 68: described as a French Louis XV looking-glass frame, this looks more like a carved giltwood portrait frame in Rococo style; with a shaped top and slightly asymmetric fronton incorporating pierced rocailles supported by foliate scrolls and acanthus branches, crowned with the kind of leafy flourish found on Liotard’s frames; with a heavier structure having an ogee profile and pierced rocaille and shell centres-&-corners with undercut and flowered rinceaux and a cross-hatched ground; sanded frieze; acanthus leaf tip-&- bud on a hatched ground; with later mirrored plate; 119 x 75 cm.; estimate: €2,000-3,000

Lot 69: a French Transitional style carved and pierced giltwood looking-glass; shaped with rounded corners and double convex mouldings rising to a large pierced and scrolling foliate fronton, from which depend the closely bunched bay leaf-&-berry garlands characterizing early goût grec designs (cordes à puits); more of these are attached with illusionary nailheads to the bottom centre leafy clasp and appear to be threaded in trompe l’oeil style through the corners of the frame; with later mirrored plate; 126.5 x 85 cm.; estimate: €2,500-4,000

Lot 104: an 18^th century Swedish looking-glass in the style of Stockholm court sculptor Burchardt Precht (1651-1738); with gilt-lead appliqués (regilded) forming the ovolo chain mouldings and other ornament; the fronton of four Bassae-type scrolls with the volutes terminating in sunflowers, and an urn of flowers at the crest; 124 x 70 cm.; estimate: €6,000-8,000

Lot 226: a pair of Italian looking-glasses; late 17^th-18^th century; ebonized wood mounted with verre églomisé, and decorated with repoussé brass and ormolu mouldings; ten orders of glass barley sugar twisted mouldings, brass ovolo chain and guilloche mouldings, with scrolling foliate centre appliqués, and acanthus leaf and scrolling foliate corner appliqués;  39 x 33 cm.; estimate: €6,000-8,000

Lot 245: a Baroque Italian rotating looking-glass on a stand, late 17^th-early 18^th century; carved, parcel-gilt and polychrome; with a reverse concave frame painted overall in a green faux marbre finish, with an applied carved giltwood rose-centred garland of leaves and fruit; the sight edge is a smaller-scale leaf and fruit garland with rose centres, which is also the frame for the looking-glass plate and its reverse, painted with the Shroud of Turin; the stand formed of a column holding the support for the rotating glass and emerging at the top as an illusionary fluted column and finial, supported by foliate scrolls; the stand and frame at the base supported by foliated S-scrolls above a square base decorated with an astragal-&-quadruple bead, a concave leaf moulding terminating in flutes, and a flowers at each corner; the flats of the base finished in green marbling; 87 x 38 cm.; estimate: €1,500-2,000

Lot 285: a late Louis XIV-Régence giltwood portrait frame converted into a looking-glass with a later mirrored plate; with convex top edge decorated with strapwork holding florets on a cross-hatched ground; a wide ogee with scrolling foliage, roses-à-tiges and miniature rinceaux connecting shell corners and reversed shell centres held in C-scrolled extensions of the top edge, and having respectively a hatched or a cross-hatched ground, and demi-centres with shaped foliate cartouches holding Eros’s quiver crossed with the burning torch of Love on a crossed-hatched ground, and terminating in a lily flower; sanded frieze; an ogee sight edge with acanthus leaves and buds; 144  x 121.5 cm.; estimate: €2,000-3,000

This frame may have held a betrothal or marriage portrait.

Lot 287: an 18^th century Italian (?) Rococo carved giltwood leaf frame for a looking-glass; with a stepped bolection profile formed of convex and concave mouldings, morphing at the crest into broken and shouldered scrolls supporting central asymmetric leafy and floral flourishes, with large-scale leaves at the corners; the sides with acanthus branches breaking into leafy scrolls with flowers; the base with architectural fragments, leaves and flowers; all the corners edged with rocaille frills; with a later mirrored plate; 80 x 60 cm.; estimate: €1,500-2,500

Lot 317: a French Louis XVI pier glass; all four rails with concave profile with a folded leaf, double bead-&-stave moulding at the top edge; the hollow with straight leaf and bud; the sight edge with leaf-&-dart; supporting an entablature with concave sweeping cornice; floral chain; piastre moulding; the inset frieze with a lacquered white ground and applied undulating and scrolling foliate moulding with acanthus leaves and roses-à-tiges, held between two lateral cassettes with applied quatrefoil paterae; with a later mirrored plate; 205 x 130 cm.: estimate: €5,000-8,000

Lot 318: a French Louis XVI carved giltwood looking-glass with fronton; all four rails with an architrave profile, with rais-de-coeur below the top edge and beading at the sight edge; supporting a fluted frieze and cornice moulding, above which are giant but slender pierced scrolling foliated volutes ending in tied pine cones and berries, and holding a plinth with two courting doves, above which is a basket of flowers and foliage; beneath the cornice on each side a swag of flowers and tassels depends on a ribbon threaded through an illusionary hole; outset fluted corners at the base spring acanthus leaves, whilst pine cones depend from the bottom rail; with a later mirrored plate; 159 x 96 cm.; estimate: €2,000-3,000

Lot 340: an 18^th century Venetian Rococo carved parcel-gilt and red lacquered looking-glass in landscape orientation; stepped convex and ogee moulding, with gilded back edge holding black decorative panels between sprigs of gilt leaves; the top edge with shaped black panels at the centres decorated with gold rinceaux and inlaid with mother-o’-pearl flowers and leaves, and held in slender foliated strapwork-&-shell ornament; the whole depending from a carved giltwood trompe l’oeil bow of ribbon with two tassels, the knot of the bow with a sunflower on a red ground, its centre with a matching black cabochon decorated with gold rinceaux and inlaid with a mother-o’-pearl flower; 123 x 131 cm.; estimate: €3,000-5,000

Lot 359: an 18^th century French Rococo carved giltwood overdoor composed of variously-oriented C-scroll convex and concave mouldings, some filled with rocailles or panels of hatching, and supporting flaring leaves centred on curved cabochons, with an asymmetric pierced rocaille crest; the painting of a garlanded shepherdess is by a follower of Boucher (1703-70); 77 x 98 cm.; estimate: €1,000-1,500 

Lot 366: a mid-18^th century Venetian carved, pierced, parcel-gilt and polychrome looking-glass; a serpentine contour with a cushion profile held between slender S- and C- scrolling gilded mouldings, with small flowered drops and rocailles on the back edge; the cushion moulding lacquered with a dark brown ground, and painted with centred arrangements of flowers and leaves in green, yellow and red, with the asymmetric top panel holding a pastoral scene with a shepherdess spinning, beneath the crest of a shell, leaves and a rocaille;  the base ends in two scrolled ‘feet’ decorated with painted gold flowers on a cross-hatched ground; 71 x 46 cm.; estimate: €4,000-6,000

Lot 441: a late 19^th century French looking-glass with fronton, carved and pierced giltwood with moulded plaster ornament; the rails with an ogee profile, wound on three sides by a feigned spiralling floral garland, the lateral rails ending at the top in foliage volutes and supporting a swan’s neck arch with foliate C-scrolls, themselves supporting a tête espagnolette held in pierced scrolls from which floral rinceaux fall; at each side of the arch a putto sits, holding a richly modelled floral festoon which crosses the glass to meet in the centre at a trompe l’oeil nailhead, from which each depends, and a central trail hangs; the base has a foliate scroll at each corner, and the bottom rail is centred with a foliate clasp; 185 x 107 cm.; estimate: €1,000-1,500