The Frame Blog

 Part 1 of this trio of articles collected together some references by artists etc. of various nationalities from the 13^th– early 19^th century concerning their frames, and Part 2 comprised frame quotations concerning 19^th century British artists, from Turner to the Pre-Raphaelites (F. M. Brown, Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt).  This third piece is a loose collection of quotations by or on the frames used by other 19^th century European artists from Ingres to Signac, together with a brief consideration of the decoration of exhibition interiors.

Ingres

 Jean Alaux (1786-1864), The studio of Ingres in Rome, 1818, o/c, 52x 49 cm. (detail of second version), unknown location

Ingres’s approach to the subject of framing turns up relatively late in Boyer d’Agen’s book of his previously unpublished letters, but is a good introduction to specific examples of his work:

‘Ingres did not want anyone to rush into framing a painting before it was finished. He found this, without doubt, pointless – even harmful; and he encapsulated his feelings in a novel phrase – The frame is the painter’s reward’ [1].

This is a quotation often misattributed to Degas, for some reason; perhaps Degas quoted Ingres at some point?

Unfortunately none of Ingres’s letters discuss the rewards his modern readers would like most to hear about from the artist – the frames, for example, of Jeanne d’Arc…,  M. Bertin  and Mme Moitessier – but what they do say is interesting and revealing.

Rubens (1577-1640), The presentation of the portrait of Marie de’ Medici to Henri IV, c.1622-25, 394 x 295 cm., detail showing frame, Musée du Louvre

Ingres to his friend Gilibert, 4 October 1822, from Florence, on Le Voeu de Louis III for the Cathedral of Montauban:

‘Next, to the frame: Fate (backed up as well by Flemish example, notably in the Rubens Gallery of the Louvre, where The presentation of the portrait of Marie de’ Medici to Henri IV is displayed) has alerted me to current fashion. I want the frame to be black: not, to be sure, black put on with a brush, but a fine wood of that colour, and I will send you the profile and design, as I wish it to be made, without ornaments and without any gold, in any way at all’ [2].

François-Joseph Heim (1787-1865), Charles X distributing awards to the artists at the close of the 1824 Salon, 1827, o/c, 173 x 256 cm., and detail with Ingres’s Le Voeu…, Musée du Louvre

Evidently Ingres didn’t persuade the French Minister of the Interior that a plain ebony or fruitwood frame was right for an altarpiece of this size and importance; neither did he manage to avoid a gilded frame, as F-J. Heim’s painting of Charles V giving awards to artists at the 1824 Salon shows Ingres’s altarpiece hanging in what is either a scotia (hollow) or an ogee frame, with little ornament but gilded overall. This may well have been a temporary exhibition frame, however, because the rules of the Salon were strict: only gilded frames were admissible until 1879, long after Ingres’s death, when black and polished wooden frames were finally accepted.

 Ingres (1780-1867), Le Voeu de Louis III, 1824, o/c, 421 x 262 cm., Cathedral of Montauban, in current Louis XIII (or style of) bay leaf garland frame

The painting now hangs in what is either an adapted antique Louis XIII frame, or a 19^th century version of the style; it is relatively slender, but richly carved on the torus – which takes up most of the width of the rail – with a garland of bay leaves and berries; and it seems to have been left in the wood, without any gilding or other finish than perhaps a coat of stain. It is interesting to see a fraction of what, presumably, Ingres was aiming for: a setting which stands out against the pale stone of the cathedral, but which fades discreetly back from the lighted focus of the painting.  It may be that this is the artist’s alternate design, in the face of opposition to a completely plain wooden frame; it is certainly some way from the frame in Rubens’s allegory of Marie de’Medici.

Ingres (1780-1867), Antiochus & Stratonice, c.1838, o/ linen, 48.1 x 63.9 cm., Cleveland Museum of Art 

In 1839 Ingres was in Rome, from where he wrote to A. M. Gatteaux,

‘…I’ve just had a violent fever, which has set back a little my sending you the painting (Antiochus & Stratonice) but only by a few days. I shall address it to you as to its second father; and, in the interim, in order that you don’t languish in idleness, I am sending you the exact dimensions of the canvas with nothing left out, so that you may – very kindly – undertake straightaway to commission a frame which will be the largest, richest and most Greek possible…’ [3]

Ingres, Antiochus & Stratonice, details of frame

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), Catherine Marie Jeanne Tallard, 1795, o/c, 64 x 54 cm., and detail,  Musée du Louvre https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010066867

This description suggests that the current Empire frame of Antiochus & Stratonice might be the original; a pattern strongly influenced by the frame designs of David, with whom Ingres had trained for four years from the age of seventeen, with a similar profile and closely-related ornament. Only the sight mouldings put this into question, as the frame appears to have been given a later inlay to fit it to the painting.

J-L.David (1748-1825), The anger of Achilles, 1819, Kimbell Art Museum, Texas, and Ingres (1780-1867), Mme Rivière, 1805, Musée du Louvre

David used versions of the Empire frame for at least a quarter of a century – on the chronologically widely separated Portrait of Mme Tallard, above, in 1795, and the great history painting, The anger of Achilles, in 1819; and Ingres himself used another Empire frame for his 1805 portrait of Madame Rivière in the Louvre . His Antiochus & Stratonice, however, has a greater width and an extra order of decoration in the run of reversed scallop shells carved below the top edge of the frame, suggesting that (if only it were indeed original) it would live up to his wish for a setting that was ‘…the largest, richest and most Greek possible…’

Ordering a frame at long distance like this was of course slightly tricky, making Ingres dependant on his friends – who also needed back-up advice:

‘…By the way, I had foreseen what would happen – that, wanting to get a beautiful frame made with the decoration I suggested, you would have consulted [Victor] Baltard, that excellent man of both talent and taste, who merits his own reward for the background of the picture which he had the goodness to draw, and for which he is a kind of godfather. So thank you both for carrying out my wishes. Of course, if the prince [the duc d’Orléans] takes this painting, I will pay for the frame myself. I shall write to my good old Baltard, to whom I offer a thousand regards and thanks…’ [4]

Ingres (1780-1867), L’odalisque, à l’esclave, 1839-40, o/c, 72.1 x 100.3 cm., Harvard Art Museums/ Fogg Museum

 The next year, 1840, Ingres was writing to Gatteaux again, wanting a frame for his L’Odalisque à l’Esclave (Boyer d’Agen, pp. 298-9):

‘Will you please have a fine frame made for it, as large and as Baroque as possible (as it’s a Turkish subject), that’s to say with whatever ornaments you can find which suggest that country, if this can be done…’ [5]

‘As I told you, I would like an unusually large frame (reasonably so, however).  For this subject, which is full of grace and a little foreign, those ornaments which are called, I don’t know why, ‘modern gothick’, seem appropriate (except, however, for metal leaf or velvets grounds). You see I’m very up to date’ [6].

Ingres, L’odalisque à l’esclave, details of frame

The current frame, although rather Baroque, is hard to see as either Turkish or 19^th century Gothick. Besides, L’odalisque… passed through the hands of Grenville Winthrop on its journey to the Fogg Art Museum, and Winthrop is notorious (if not infamous) for having removed from their polyptych frame designed by the artist, the individual canvases which make up The days of creation by Burne-Jones, in despite of the artist’s own handwritten plea on the back of each painting that this should not be done. Winthrop also got rid of Holman Hunt’s own frame for The miracle of the Holy Fire (see Part 2 of this trio of articles), and so it is highly likely that he would have disposed of Ingres’s Orientalist frame for L’odalisque… if it were too outré for his humdrum tastes. Wretched man.

Delacroix

 Das atelier von Eugène Delacroix, 1917, print, Wallach Division, Picture Collection, New York Public Library

Boyer d’Agen’s book on Ingres contains not only his previously unpublished letters, but sections of a biography interspersed between the relevant groups of them, including anecdotes of Ingres’s peers. Amongst these Delacroix naturally appears, together with his painting, The barque of Dante, which marked his debut in the 1822 Salon.

However, as Boyer d’Agen reports, framing such a large work was a problem:

‘But what frame – because a frame was required by the regulations of the Salon – could be found to fit such a large canvas and still be within reach of the artist’s purse? A new Marius on the ruins of a new Carthage, Delacroix was cursing his lack of means when he noticed the carpenter’s workshop on the ground floor of the house where he occupied the attic. From the very top and bottom of the same building, need and ingenuity came together with generous disinterestedness to find a solution. This was the carpenter’s idea: he advised the painter simply to nail four planks together in the shape of a frame, and to coat them with fish glue and sprinkle them with sand and sawdust in the place of  gilding. The canvas went immediately before the jury in this original frame – and Delacroix fled to Louroux, near Louhans, where he would not experience the shame of his work being rejected’ [7].

Fortunately, Baron Gros beats down the jury’s inevitable outrage at this piece of lawless impertinence, and insists that they examine The barque of Dante properly – volunteering, when he sees that it is only the pastiche frame in the way of the picture’s acceptance, to pay for a proper frame himself. Delacroix, having been told of his success, visits the Salon and is unable to find his painting, not thinking that it would have been hung (as, with dramatic neatness, it has been) in the Salon Carré with the maîtres; he retraces his steps through all the rooms he’s previously searched until he reaches the heart of the exhibition, and sees:

‘…His own work, in the beautiful gilded frame given to him through a master’s charity, where Dante and Virgil are plunged into the howling storm, drifting away on a sea which recedes on the perspective produced by the lines of golden reeded mouldings which clasp it, and create – for this boat moving in the dark through a river of the damned – a margin from which, in contrast, the cheerful light of day is reflected…’ [8]

Delacroix (1798-1863), The barque of Dante, 1822, o/c, 189 x 241.5 cm., Musée du Louvre

This story is given far more space than in the published version of Delacroix’s own journal. Presumably Boyer d’Agen had evidence from somewhere apart from that journal or Ingres’s letters for the appearance of the frame, which is quite specific and very different from the plain scotia now on the painting. It could only be an artist’s interpretation of the moulding which sees that, in choosing closely-set parallel astragals or reeds, Baron Gros has helped to emphasize the recession of the waves towards the City of the Dead in the background; whilst the gilding provides a foil for the inchoate darkness of river and storm.

Delacroix (1798-1863), Still life with lobsters and prizes of hunting and fishing, 1826-27, o/c, 80.5 x 112 cm., Musée du Louvre

 At some point in 1827 Delacroix writes (precise date and correspondent lost):

‘I have finished an ‘animal’ picture for the General and I have found for it a Rococo frame which I’m going to regild and which will be marvellous.’

Many artists, of course, used second-hand frames (especially when they were young and hard-up), but few of them describe the pattern in terms of style like this. It is a reminder that frames from different eras have a much longer life than they are generally given credit for – not only in terms of continuing to hang on the same wall around the same painting for several generations, or being acquired together with the painting for another collection; but also because they may be given a new lease of life, a century or more later, by an artist who will pair them with his own work in a very different style. This quote probably refers to the painting above, which was commissioned by Général Charles, comte de Coëtlosquet; it was exhibited in Paris, in the 1827-1828 Salon (n°300). But what could it have looked like in Delacroix’s regilded frame…? – nothing like it looks today, anyway.

Delacroix, Still life with lobsters and prizes of hunting and fishing, 1826-27, montaged with a randomly-chosen Louis XV frame

In 1853 Delacroix writes to another correspondent:

‘I have tried my picture of Christ in the frame you sent me. I don’t find that it goes as well as in the other, now at my house, and which has more twisted ornament.  Yours with the fluting chills the picture considerably.’

[This might, out of many Christs, be Christ asleep in the tempest, 1853, Metropolitan Museum NY, now in frame with acanthus ogee? Christ on the Cross, 1853, NG? Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1853, Foundation EG Bührle Collection, Christ on the Lake of Genesareth, Portland Art Museum, Christ on the Cross with holy women, Kunsthalle Bremen]

Some frames both for Ingres (perhaps) and Delacroix (certainly) were obtained from the Haro dynasty at the Palette d’Or (later Au Génie des Arts, Saint-Germain). The first Haro was a colourman who supplied Ingres at the turn of the 18^th century; his son, Etienne-François Haro (1827-97), studied under both artists before taking over his father’s business as a colourman, becoming an artist’s agent and frame dealer as well. For example, in 1858 Delacroix contacted one of his clients, a M. Hurel, apologizing for the late arrival of a painting of The bride of Abydos, based on Byron’s poem. The delay had been created by Haro’s confusing two commissions, causing Delacroix to wait two-&-a-half months for the frame; sadly, no description of the frame was given [9].

 Burne-Jones

Burne-Jones’s father was a picture-framemaker at 11, Bennet’s Hill, Birmingham, but sadly not a very expert one, as the artist’s wife pointed out:

‘…the father was very happy in framing his son’s pictures, but, alas, any original design which must be exactly carried out baffled the skill of his small workshop, and Edward had gently and by degrees to let the arrangement drop through’ [10].

Burne-Jones (1833-98), Sidonia von Bork, 1560, 1860, watercolour, 33.3 x 17.1 cm., and Clara von Bork, 1560, 1860, watercolour, 34.2 x 17.9 cm., Tate Britain

Sidonia still has the original outer frame of slender astragals set close together and decorated with bay leaves. This frame re-appears on several later studies, and is clearly in direct imitation of Rossetti’s frames. But because Burne-Jones’s father wasn’t the most competent of framemakers, the bay-leaf astragals around the pendant, Clara von Bork, have had to be replaced [11].

Thomas Matthew Rooke, The Grange, North End Road Fulham, (Burne-Jones’s dining room ), 1904, watercolour, 52 x 36.8 cm., and detail, Bateman’s, NT

In 1871 Burne-Jones was given a panel (supposed to be the work of Giorgione) by Charles Elliott Norton, to whom he wrote:

‘O, such a picture! It is to have a glorious curly-wurly frame, a piece of wholesale upholstery round it to make it shine like a jewel as it is…’ [12]

This painting is referred to by Fiona McCarthy:

‘Besides photographs, his friend Charles Eliot Norton presented Burne-Jones with an example of the real thing, a fragment of the painting The Rape of Europa by Giorgione. The subject had been obscured by overpainting but Burne-Jones had it restored to reveal: “a little bright jewel of Venice: so fresh and clear that I never saw better..”

…In fact doubts have since been cast over whether the painting is by Giorgione.  Could it be a Bonifacio or a Palma Vecchio?  Burne-Jones had no such loss of confidence in his Giorgione and it is still in the Burne-Jones family…”. [13]

It is supposed to be the picture in Rooke’s interior, above.

Giotto (1266-1337), Crucifix, 1310-17, tempera on wood, Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini; and Burne-Jones, sketch of crowning finial from crucifix, with frame

With reference to a much earlier era, the collector William Graham asked Burne-Jones about framing a roundel by Giotto, which was actually the finial from the crest of the Rimini Crucifix. Burne-Jones replied:

‘Vacani has just been with the design for the amorphous frame – it is a singularly hideous shape – and I told him I thought the best thing to do with it would be to frame it square – filling up the spaces with dark painted wood flush with the picture and painted in different grays some spandrilly pattern like this [see drawing above]… Nothing would ever make it look well but it would crush the spirits less – what is the picture? a cassone one? was it the end of a box? and has the bottom been cut away – it is a most inexplicable shape – perhaps if I saw the picture I could give better advice’. [14]

It is probably the ‘…quatrefoil panel of the Redeemer Blessing in a British private collection [which] has been identified (by Federico Zeri in Paragone (1957)) as the medallion cut from the top of the crucifix’. [15]

Burne-Jones mentions Vacani again in a letter of about 1890 to William De Morgan:

‘do you rem^member a frame I likt at your house it wus a frame from florrence it wus a nice one and I likt it may Mr Va^cani make me one lik it may he call at your house and I may add your good ladies’ house on Monday nex about 12 or so I will try to come round on Sunday afternoon to adentify the frame…’ [sic] [16]

The result may very well have been the frame which was eventually made for The Star of Bethlehem of c. 1887-91.

Burne-Jones (1833-98), The Star of Bethlehem, c. 1887-91, watercolour & bodycolour on paper, 101 x 152 ins (256 x 386.8 cm.), and detail. Photo with thanks to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery 

It is similar in type to those made in Florence for J. M. Strudwick, Spencer Stanhope, and the latter’s niece, Evelyn, wife of William De Morgan – and thus most likely to have been the frame which Burne-Jones had seen at the De Morgans’ house [17].

In 1891 Burne-Jones wrote to his client, ‘Mr Kendrick’, about framing The Star of Bethlehem (which is quite large), offering his opinion on the proportions of frames for differently-sized pictures (a slightly different view from that of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who seemed to prefer wide frames for every painting [18]):

‘It isn’t a wide frame, for a wide frame would dwarf the picture; I find little pictures are good in vast frames but big ones frame themselves. About all this I have used my best judgement, but the sooner I order the frame the better, for I want its horrible new glare to tone a little.’ [19]

 Albert Moore

Albert Moore (1841-93), Battledore, 1868-70, o/c, 107.32 x 45.24 cm., Minneapolis Institute of Arts

There were often arguments between clients and artists over who should pay for the frame, some of which could last for some time, like Turner’s repeated applications to the Marquis of Stafford for an extra 20 guineas on top of the 250 guineas he had been paid for the painting, for the frame of the Bridgewater Seapiece. Regarding a similar dispute between Albert Moore and his patron Leathart over who should pay for the frames of Battledore and Shuttlecock, Val Prinsep wrote to Moore in 1871:

‘My experience is that purchasers are only too glad for artists to choose their frames and make no objections to paying for them – but I think in a commission they ought to be consulted in the matter and if not consulted are not bound to take the frame… but if the purchaser takes the frame he ought to pay for it certainly.  In portraits, the only kind of commissions I have taken, I always make the frame-maker send his bill to the purchaser but I ask what kind of frame the said purchaser would like.’ [20]

 Whistler and the painted frame

 Whistler (1834-1903), Arrangement in grey: Portrait of the artist, c.1872, o/c, 74.9 x 53.3 cm., Detroit Institute of Arts

In January 1873, Whistler wrote to George Lucas, his friend and dealer in Paris, telling him to visit Durand-Ruel’s current exhibition, which contained several of his, Whistler’s, works (including the self-portrait above), and adding,

‘You will notice and perhaps meet with opposition that my frames I have designed as carefully as my pictures – and thus they form as important a part as any of the rest of the work – carrying on the particular harmony throughout – This is of course entirely original with me and has never been done – Though many have painted on their frames but never with real purpose – or knowledge – in short never in this way or anything at all like it – This I have so thoroughly established here that no one would dare to put any colour whatever (excepting the old black and white and that quite out of place probably) on their frames without feeling that they would at once be pointed out as forgers or imitators; and I wish this to be also clearly stated in Paris that I am the inventor of all this kind of decoration of ⁱⁿ color in the frames; that I may not have a lot of clever little Frenchmen trespassing on my ground ….

You will see my mark on pictures and frames – It is a butterfly and does as a monogram for J.W. [butterfly signature]
Characteristic I dare say you will say in more ways than one! –’ [21]

This is a prime example of Whistlerian nerve; he was asserting himself in reference to the Impressionists (on debatable grounds), but his colleagues in London, from whom he had learnt not only how to draw but how to frame a painting in an innovative and non-traditional style, aren’t even acknowledged.

The Impressionists must have been using painted frames in or before 1872 to have elicited such an assertive declaration from Whistler. These were probably painted a flat white or off-white at first, and later on in a single colour complementary to the painting; although we cannot be entirely sure of the timeline, as it is not until the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877 that critics can be found commenting on the white frames appearing there (see below). Rossetti and Frederic Leighton, however, were some way ahead, both of trespassing Frenchmen and trespassed-upon Americans.

Rossetti (1828-82), The salutation of Beatrice, painted panels 1859, frame 1865, overall dimensions 101 x 202 cm., and detail, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Rather than painted decoration, Rossetti’s frame designs mostly use punched, engraved and carved ornament, along with inscribed poems and quotations. However, in 1865 he removed from a cupboard made for William Morris two panels painted with scenes of Dante and Beatrice, and joined them as diptych in a black and gold reeded frame as The salutation of Beatrice. He painted the gilt oak frieze of the frame with the figure of Amor on its central dividing field and cassettes with plum blossom in the corners, in what is now a warm dark brown, although it may have started out as black. It was from Rossetti that Whistler learned about japonism and the use of avant-garde ornament on frames; flat friezes, reeded mouldings, painting on frames and many of the things which later characterize his own designs.

Frederic Leighton (1830-96), Lieder ohne worte, 1861, o/c, 101.6 x 62.9 cm., and detail, Tate

Whistler was almost certainly influenced by Leighton’s early painted frames, as well; especially that of Lieder ohne worte, which is painted with small repeating patterns in dark blue, and which belongs to a painting composed as the visual equivalent to musical harmonies.

J.A.M. Whistler (1834-1903), Caprice in purple & gold no 2: The golden screen, 1864, o/c, 50.1 x 68.5 cm., with detail of paulownia ‘mon’ on frame; Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

The innermost run of painted roundels on Leighton’s frame contains tiny Japanese paulownia leaves, which might particularly have appealed to Whistler; the 1864 frame he designed for his Caprice in purple & gold no 2: The golden screen has roundels on the frieze with inscribed gilded paulownia leaves relieved on a coloured ground.

In another of his letters to his patron, Frederick Leyland (also a patron of Rossetti), Whistler thanks him for the term ‘Nocturne’ for his paintings [22]: yet the use of musical equivalences was already there in Leighton’s Songs without words, and in Albert Moore’s Musicians, and Whistler could not help but have been aware of these, since he had worked very closely with Moore. Moore’s use of an anthemion or Greek honeysuckle motif to sign his paintings may well have catalyzed Whistler’s butterfly, which he refers to in the letter to George Lucas. [23]

Like Moore, too, Whistler had problems with getting clients to pay for the frame:

Let us say the things clearly – I gave the picture [Harmony in blue and silver: Trouville] to your Father! …now what is the upshot after many years it comes back to me in a pretty condition – any quality of light and purity it may possess being utterly lost… With very little hope however I set to work and finally manage[d] to clean the little picture – and restore it to its original fairness – and then take the trouble to order for it a frame designed by myself – so that after a long period it is returned to you pretty enhanced in beauty; and as a result, so little is the who[l]e thing cared for, that your Father refuses to pay the frame maker for the frame for my silly gift – Now the right thing to do would be simply this – Give me back my picture …Look also at the matter of the little Balcony. I borrowed it several times from your Father – and each time I worked upon it and added to its worth until at last I had more than quadrupled its value – In the end I also ordered for it a new frame – and elaborately painted and ornamented it – and again the mere price of the frame was refused when Foord and Dickenson [sic: Dickinson] sent in his bill – Now when you reflect that 30 guineas was the price paid and that I never since stayed my hand because of the sum, well, it is scarcely flattering to one’s sense of appreciation.

 The Impressionists and white frames

 Michel-Eugène Chevreul (1786-1889 [yes, really]), The laws of colour contrast, 1839, transl. 1854, ed. 1861, p.18. Internet Archive

In 1839 Michel-Eugène Chevreul, chemist, published his work on light, colour, and the effects of colours seen alongside other colours, De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs, or The laws of colour contrast. This was to exert a profound influence on early ideas of framing by the artists who became known as the Impressionists, and perhaps of even greater influence on the Post-Impressionists.

‘All the primary colours gain by their juxtaposition with white… the depth of tone of a colour has a great influence upon the effect of its assortment with white’ [24].

In effect, the Impressionists (in their early years) replaced gold leaf, which had historically been seen a) as a sort of neutral finish, and b) as a finish which would enhance the colours in the paintings it framed, by white paint, which now had a scientific explanation for its reaction with colours that could be quoted in support of its use. They also had scientific support for refraining from using gold frames in Chevreul’s judgement on those:

Chevreul, The laws of colour contrast, ed. 1861, pp.145-47. Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/lawsofcontrastof00chev/page/144/mode/2up

Georges Lecomte, the art critic, recorded the earliest firm information which survives on the use of white frames by French artists during the last quarter of the 19^th century, when he published an article based on his conversations with Pissarro; – and it is from Pissarro’s letters than most is to be learned about the struggle for white frames, something of what they looked like, and how long this particular artist continued to use them. Lecomte noted that Pissarro had first used white frames in 1877:

‘In the 1877 exhibition, M.Pissarro, invoking with strict logic the law of complementaries, put his canvases into white frames which, having no effect on the colours themselves, allowed each tone to maintain its proper value’ [25].

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Côtes des Boeufs, L’Hermitage, 1877, o/c, 114.9 x 87.6 cm., National Gallery NG 4197

Because of the way this is phrased, it indicates that Pissarro was almost certainly following Chevreul’s dicta [26]. Unfortunately, there is no record of which, or how many, paintings were framed like this, in what was also the third exhibition of Impressionist works. The work above, Côtes des Boeufs, L’Hermitage, is one of twenty-two canvases which Pissarro exhibited that year – possibly not all in white frames – and only a general indication of what it might have looked like can be attempted, by montaging it with the original, surviving polished white gesso frame from Degas’s Dancer au repos of 1879:

 Pissarro, Côtes des Boeufs, 1877, o/c, National Gallery, in the frame of Degas, Dancer au repos, 1879

Degas (1834-1917), Dans un café (L’Absinthe), 1875-76, o/c, 92 x 68.5 cm., Musée d’Orsay, in its present ‘Camondo’ frame

Degas, Dans un café, 1875-76, Musée d’Orsay, in the frame of his Dancer au repos, 1879

Another critic, writing at the time under the name ‘Jacques’, mentions Degas’s own paintings of café life and concerts as also being hung in white frames at the 1877 exhibition; he dismisses them as ‘passe-partouts’ or white card mounts [27]. They were probably very similar to Pissarro’s white frames, especially given that in 1879 Degas and Pissarro were working together, along with Mary Cassatt, on a collaborative project for publishing their prints. Pissarro even describes the frames for his pictures, in 1883, as

‘… white, with a fluted pattern at the edge, made pretty much like those you had some time ago, but narrower, and the gold is burnished.’

Degas (1834-1917), profile of a frame, Carnet de croquis no 5, Département des Estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris

This is a pretty accurate description of one of Degas’s frames, known otherwise as his ‘pipe’ frame from its profile, where the square-sectioned outer moulding is decorated with gilded flutes on the top edge.

Like the critics, the dealers weren’t keen on white frames (probably because their clients were also dubious). Even Durand-Ruel, champion of the Impressionists through their unpopular years seems to have stuck his heels in at first. Pissarro mentions this to his son to Lucien in a letter of February 1883:

‘As for urging Durand-Ruel to hold an exhibition in a hall decorated by us, it would, I think, be wasted breath.  You saw how I fought with him for white frames, and finally I had to abandon the idea. No! I do not think that Durand can be won over’ [28] .

However, the tide began to turn quite quickly after that:

‘I find it curious that Durand should have used [in an exhibition in Bond Street, London] white frames for my pictures, when here he won’t permit it under any circumstances…What you report about the way the pictures were crowded together is terrible. We are not guilty of such lapses here…’ [29]

Pissarro (1830-1903), The market at Pontoise, c.1882, tempera or gouache, 81 x 65 cm., location and frame sadly unknown

And in May of the same year, 1883, Pissarro is reporting to Lucien that,

‘We can only have a good exhibition if we ourselves arrange it.  The Paris exhibition is pretty good though the hall is poor.  I placed the pictures quite far apart. – I am fairly well satisfied with my arrangements, Durand gave me complete freedom. I have two rooms of white frames, the effect is good.  My Market [The market at Pontoise], on which I worked so much since last year, is splendid in a white frame. Today’s L’Intransigeant mentions it.  It is taken for a pastel….’ [30]

However, other exhibition spaces weren’t so amenable to white frames, as four years later he wrote to Lucien:

‘M. Petit… told me that the international committee met, and after some deliberation, decided not to permit white frames [at the International Exhibition, Galerie George Petit, 7 May 1887].  I mentioned that having foreseen such difficulties I had resolved to have oak frames with white margins on the paintings, and that in this way I proposed to reconcile the harmony of the other frames with mine without disturbing the harmony of my pictures. He found this satisfactory, but I asked myself if they would not find something else to object to, damn it! If so, I will at once withdraw.  As a matter of fact, I don’t regret not having white frames, which would not be rich enough in these surroundings…’[31]

Pissarro (1830-1903), L’Ile Lacroix, Rouen, Effect of fog, 1888, Philadelphia Museum of Art

It’s possible that this may be a surviving instance of the ‘oak frames with white margins’ which Pissarro had used previously at the Galerie Georges Petit. Jennifer Thompson notes that this particular frame was designed by Pissarro for the painting, though it may originally have been painted white[32]; however, it might also have been finished as he describes to Lucien, with the top and sight edges painted white, and the rest gilded, in keeping with the opulent decoration of the gallery.

Like the rest of his colleagues, as time went he admitted gilt frames, or partially gilt frames, in order to make more headway with exhibitions and sales; so that whilst on 16 May 1888 he was telling Lucien:

‘If I can obtain from Signac or Seurat or some other neoimpressionist a frame of about 36 x 28 inches for my landscape The cleft in the road, I will show the canvas, but never in a horrible gilt frame’ [33]…

…in 1889 he wrote:

‘The Femmes aux seaux, placed in a fine new gilded frame, did admirably, with a heightening of the tone, a comforting warmth; very powerful and rich…’ [34]

The novelist Zola, originally a supporter of this group of artists, read nothing but commercial motivations into this change, ignoring the first, catalyzing influence of Chevreul’s theories:

‘In their early exhibitions, the impressionists (Monet for instance), used a flat frame, either white or coloured.  This was certainly for economic reasons, since, as soon as they had surmounted their difficulties, these artists decked their work in traditional frames’ [35].

The Impressionists and coloured frames

The critic and novelist J.K. Huysmans, reviewing ‘L’Exposition des indépendents’ in 1881, remarked:

‘Then what variety there is in the frames, finished in all the varied tones of gold, every shade known, and edged with ribbon mouldings painted in the complementary colours of the frames! The series on Pissarro’s work, above all, is surprising this year. It’s a rainbow of Veronese green, sea green, corn yellow and peach, amadou-fungus brown and the colour of wine lees; and the delicacy with which the colourist has picked all his tints to make the skies recede and the foregrounds project better must really be seen. It is the keenest refinement; and, although the frame can add nothing to the skill of a work, it is nevertheless a necessary complement, an adjunct which shows it off to best advantage. It is analogous to a woman’s beauty which requires the enhancement of fine clothes’ [36].

Georges Lecomte’s article, drawn from his conversations with Pissarro, also mentions the artist’s frames being finished in colours complementary to the paintings:

‘… a green frame for a sunset in mainly red tones, a matt yellow frame for a purplish canvas; a green spring scene enshrined in rose pink…’ [37]

Pissarro (1830-1903), In the garden at Pontoise: Young woman washing dishes, 1882, o/c, 81.9 x 65.3 cm., Fitzwilliam Museum

It’s pretty difficult now to imagine Pissarro’s paintings presented in such a spectrum of colour and range of gold leaf; this, above, is one of the few survivals of an Impressionist painted frame (excepting those by Degas) which remains with its original canvas. It has a simple cassetta-like profile, finished with a white paint which, although it now appears slightly discoloured from age, was probably tinted with colour from the beginning.

Pissarro, In the garden at Pontoise…, details of frame

The frieze has been quite heavily laden with paint, giving it a surface more textured than the mouldings, and then random taches of colour have been applied – the grass green and ochre of the painting, which set off the warm tones of ground, table and door, and the blues and purples of sky, apron and shadows. It’s probably not what we imagine a coloured Impressionist frame to have been like from the critics’ descriptions, but those which were painted all over in the bouquet of colours conjured lyrically by Huysmans must have been the first victims of the revisionary dealer’s hand.

The art historian Henri Havard, reviewing the 1881 Impressionist exhibition, would probably have sympathized with such a clean sweep; he noted that frames throughout the display included:

‘…unlikely shades, from a pistachio green to a sickening ointment pink’ [38],

…although in 1882, the critic Jules-François Fleury-Husson (Champfleury), writing in his Journal in 1882 on the Impressionists’ reaction against gold frames, stated that paintings should be appropriately framed:

‘ …[Nature] must framed as she requires: green frames for landscapes, red for dramatic scenes.  Gold is a fanciful hybrid which plays a wretched trick with the purity of certain scenes…’ [39]

Degas (1834-1917), Portrait d’amis sur scène, 1879, pastel, 79 x 55 cm., Musée d’Orsay. Photo: with thanks to Michael Savage

Degas (1834-1917), Baigneuse allongée sur sol, c.1885, pastel, 48 x 87 cm., Musée d Orsay

Degas (1834-1917), profiles of frames, Carnet de croquis no 23, Département des Estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris

Degas (1834-1917), Le tub, 1886, pastel, 60 x 83 cm., Musée dOrsay. Photo: with thanks to Michael Savage

Few of these colourful mouldings remain, and those that do are nearly all Degas’s – green and deep red – due to his dogged protection of each possible framed painting as an inviolable Gesamtkunstwerk, the outcome of a Ruskinian co-operation with the craftsman who was his partner in creating the frame. These two colours seem to have been especially upsetting to their beholders; the artist Jean-Jacques Henner stating in 1881 that,

‘In my opinion, [Degas’s] a little odd… he uses red and green frames, as though to cause a scandal.’

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Richard Gallo and his dog at Petit-Gennevilliers, 1884, o/c, 89 x 116 cm., in its previous frame

There may also have been an original and surviving green frame on Caillebotte’s portrait of his schoolfriend Richard Gallo walking along a river bank. Isabelle Cahn published this frame as authentic in 1989, together with the painting, in Cadres de peintres, where she noted of the genre of coloured frames that:

‘Several rare specimens still survive, such as the green frame on the portrait of Richard Gallo and his dog at Petit-Gennevilliers’ [40].

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Richard Gallo and his dog at Petit-Gennevilliers, 1884, o/c, 89 x 116 cm., Sotheby’s New York, 12 November 2019, Lot 25

If it were indeed the original frame, then Caillebotte has been hit by the Curse of Segantini – the artist’s own frame amputated from his painting after 130 peaceful years as one unit, because a subsequent generation wants to advertize the modern monetary value of the canvas through an antique frame (or, in Segantini’s case, because the proprietary museum wishes to hang the work chronologically, regardless of influence, sense and aesthetics).

 Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), En écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, 1938, ed. 1985, pp. 118-19. Internet Archive

This, is, of course, the point at which to quote the dealer, Vollard, from his book of anecdotes detailing, along with others, his knowledge of Degas:

‘Once, when he had been invited with some others to dinner with one of his old friends, he only got as far as the hall, having noticed, as soon as he entered, one of his paintings hanging in a gold frame. Degas lifted it down, with a two-sous coin bent up the tacks holding the canvas to the frame, and walked out with the painting under his arm.
‘Where’s Degas?’ asked the hostess. ‘Wasn’t it he who came in earlier?’
But they never saw him again.
‘Rely on your friends – huh!’ said Degas.
And the ‘friend’, who thought that the painter must have found the new frame not opulent enough for his work, exclaimed, ‘A frame which cost five hundred francs! What more can Degas want?’

Reverting to Zola’s remark, made in hindsight on Impressionist framing,

‘In their early exhibitions, the impressionists (Monet for instance), used a flat frame, either white or coloured.  This was certainly for economic reasons, since, as soon as they had surmounted their difficulties, these artists decked their work in traditional frames’,

a reply can be made – not this time in words, through what the artist might have said – but through the photographs taken of Monet’s studio in 1909 and 1920.

Framed paintings in Monet’s studio, awaiting his exhibition at Durand-Ruel’s gallery in May 1909. Photo: with thanks to George Shackelford

Pierre Choumoff (1872-1936), photograph of  Monet showing the duc de Trévise his early work, including Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1920

Another view of Monet’s studio, c.1900

These illustrate Monet’s use of gilded frames, but mostly with very slender rails; they could hardly be considered ‘traditional’, in Zola’s word, if that applied to what might be called the establishment style of the Salon frame; just as the gilt ‘Camondo’ frame endorsed by Degas, and the elements of gilding allowed by Pissarro, could not really be thought of as ‘traditional’. These were all artists who paid attention to their frames; if they could please the world of dealers, exhibition panels and clients, they would bend to a certain extent, but the designs would still be, as far as possible, their own choice.

Monet (1840-1926), Le jardin de l’artiste à Giverny, 1900, o/c, 81.6 x 92.6 cm., Musée d’Orsay

The last of the photos shown above features Monet’s Le jardin de l’artiste à Giverny, which is still in its original frame. This is a variation on a Baroque Italian torus frame, with a spiral leaf-&-stave ornament; it would have been acceptable by the Salon for its design and finish, but the painting was only shown during the artist’s lifetime with Durand-Ruel, in 1900, the year it was painted (and sold). It was clearly chosen to harmonize with and complement the subject, composition and colouring of the painting.

The decorative hang

Beyond the boundary of the frame was, of course, the interior in which it hung. Over hundreds of years, paintings and frames had evolved with the style of architecture where they were displayed, in an osmotic style which informed everything in a particular era, from hair and dress, through sculpture and gardens, to ceramics and shoes.

Frederick Mackenzie (1787-1854), The National Gallery when at Mr J.J. Angerstein’s house, Pall Mall, watercolour, 1824-34. © Victoria and Albert Museum

But, as the collector moved through time, collecting more and more from a greater variety of periods, and as his house oscillated from one revival style to another, the context of any painting reft from its original home – and probably also its frame – might be far from what it had been designed to harmonize with.

In the 19^th century, the most influential movement in modern frame design was that of the Pre-Raphaelites, influencing as it did the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, and the Symbolists [41]. Ford Madox Brown and D.G. Rossetti formed a creative partnership in producing the frames for their work, designing a core of patterns which were adaptable to a variety of genres and subjects. But Rossetti went beyond this, in attempting to organize the backgrounds against which even the works which he sold would hang.
He sent swatches of Morris wallpaper to clients, told them how to light his work, generally ordered the frames himself, and suggested to the authorities of Llandaff Cathedral that they should paint the east end of the cathedral black to show off his altarpiece [42]. Morris himself had commissioned the Red House from Philip Webb in 1859, a building and interior utterly different from the prevailing Victorian horror vacui.

And then, in 1877, the Grosvenor Gallery opened. It was founded by Sir Coutts and Lady Lindsay, and was supported by artists of the so-called second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism like Burne-Jones, aesthetic Olympians, like Leighton and Albert Moore, and by G.F. Watts and Whistler.

‘Many of these artists were also active in decorative projects and in blurring the distinction between painting and decorative arts (furnishings, crafts)’ [43].

‘The Grosvenor Gallery’, The Illustrated London News, 5 May 1877, Internet Archive, via The Victorian Web

The ideas and inclinations of these artists, the style of their work, their concerns with framing and presentation, and their avoiding (in the main) of dependence on the Royal Academy, were all mirrored in the very different methods of display in the Grosvenor Gallery, compared with the RA: space, light, colour (a starry blue ceiling cove beneath the glass), and paintings hung in only one or two tiers with a lot of empty wall around them.

William Powell Frith (1819-1909), A private view at the Royal Academy, 1881, o/c, 60 x 114 cm., exh. in 1883, private collection

Even four years after the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery, the display at the Royal Academy had hardly been affected: paintings are still crammed in, edge to edge, four or six deep, mounting almost to the top of the wall; the event seems still primarily social and commercial, and Frith mocks the Aesthetic movement in the person of Oscar Wilde and his cluster of fans.

In this world of bifurcated tastes Whistler held his first one-man show in London in 1874. This was not nearly so unusual as it was in France, where only Rousseau, Courbet and Manet had their own exhibitions in the 1860s. Catherine Roach has shown how various and exciting the multitudes of exhibitions were in London as early as the 1820s:

‘“London, at present, teems with shows of art”, wrote a critic for the New Monthly Magazine in 1821, citing as evidence group exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the Society of Painters in Water Colours; the single-artist exhibitions of Benjamin Robert Haydon, John Glover, Thomas Christopher Hofland, Benjamin West, and James Ward; and the domestic galleries of John Leicester, the Marquess of Stafford, Thomas Hope, and the Earl Grosvenor’ [44].

Whistler (1834-1903), Resting, c.1870-73, pastel on brown paper, 15.1×7.6 cm., Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian

This first show had grey walls, yellow mats on the floor, maroon upholstery and blue jars of flowers [45]. His next exhibition was of pastels, painted in Venice in 1880, and was more elaborate. The exhibition took place in 1881 at the Fine Art Society in Bond Street, London, down the road from the Grosvenor Gallery, and built on the aestheticism which flourished there. The pastels were executed on a mid-brown paper, and were shown in a room decorated to echo the three different shades of gold leaf which had been used on the frames.

In 1883 he held another exhibition entitled ‘Arrangement in White & Yellow’:

‘The gallery on this occasion was hung with white and yellow, had yellow matting on the floor, yellow chairs and yellow flowers in yellow pots. The attendant at the door was in yellow and white livery, while the artist wore yellow socks, and his assistants, yellow cravats’ [46].

This show is mentioned in his letters by Pissarro. Lucien had visited it, described it to his father, and accused Whistler of having stolen the idea from the Impressionists, to which Pissarro responds:

‘How I regret not to have seen the Whistler show; I would have liked to have been there as much for the fine drypoints as for the setting, which for Whistler has so much importance; he is even a bit too pretentious for me, aside from this I should say that for the room white and yellow is a charming combination.  The fact is that we ourselves made the first experiments with colours: the room in which I showed was lilac, bordered with canary yellow.  But we poor little rejected painters lack the means to carry out our concepts of decoration….’ [47]

The lilac and yellow room which Pissarro was describing was part of the 1880 Impressionist exhibition, and was the background for his prints:

‘… encircled by their purple frames surrounding yellow mounts…’ [48]

Whistler (1834-1903), Design for the colouring of a room, c.1883-86, watercolour, 25.2 x 17.8 cm., Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian

Whistler’s next one-man exhibition, ‘Arrangement in Flesh Colour & Grey’, took place at Dowdeswell’s gallery, New Bond Street, London, in 1884. Charles Dowdeswell had the advantage of being a framemaker as well as a dealer (the frame of Resting, above, is almost certainly one of his). The 1884 show of Whistler’s work included sixty-one small paintings, pastels and watercolours, and was furnished with

‘flat gold frames, on walls of pink silk, with… two Chinese vases in “crushed strawberry” and “sang de boeuf” [49]’.

The watercolour above may relate to this scheme; it is annotated by Whistler, ‘Wall. Venetian Red. White. Yellow ochre’, ‘Skirting board – Venetian Red White. Raw Sienna.’, ‘Waxed Floor.-’. Other descriptions of the wall colour call it ‘salmon’, which accords much better with the sketch than ‘pink silk’. This exhibition was followed by an ‘Arrangement in Brown and Gold’ in 1886, also at Dowdeswell’s gallery.

The Post-Impressionists

Georges Seurat (1859-91), Les poseuses, 1886-88, o/c, 200 x 249.9 cm., and details of background frame, Barnes Foundation

Like the Impressionists before him, Seurat had read Chevreul’s book, The laws of colour contrast, and his painting, Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grand Jatte, was given a plain but hefty white-painted frame which can be seen in the background of Les poseuses, the painting which followed it.

Seurat (1859-91), Sunday afternoon on La Grand Jatte, 1884-85, o/c, 207.5 x 308.1 cm., Art Institute of Chicago

Strangely, when the Art Institute of Chicago came to replace this vanished frame, they didn’t copy the one which Seurat had evidently chosen for it, with a curved top edge, wide flat frieze and canted sight edge, but a more characterless  convex moulding with a flat top edge which swoops back to the wall.

 Ogden Rood’s Modern chromatics, with applications to art and industry, 1879, republished as Colour, 1890, p. 252. Internet Archive

As well as by Chevreul, Seurat especially amongst the Post-Impressionists was influenced by Ogden Rood’s Modern chromatics, with applications to art and industry, published in 1879 in America, with a French edition in 1881. This, again, emphasized the use of colour contrasts in creating effects of greater clarity and saturation. From 1888, Seurat added painted borders to the edges of his canvases; these use complementary colours in some areas, but not in others, and seem rather to be an optical device between frame and painting which both binds, separates, creates an illusionary shadow, or helps to enhance the contrasts of light within the composition.

Seurat (1859-91), Young woman powdering herself, c.1890, o/c, 95.5 x 79.5 cm., Courtauld Institute

 Seurat comments on this work,

‘The frame is in a harmony contrasting with that of the tones, colours and lines of the painting’ [50].

He adds two small diagrams to his statement; one like a segmentally arched window containing a downward-pointing arrow, and the other the same but reversed. They explain the painting and frame combination through the curved top of the painted border echoing the reflected light beneath the shuttered picture, the spaces between the table legs, and the downward-pointing arrows on the wallpaper: these are reversed in the pitched top of the shuttered picture, the ‘V’s behind the table legs, and the curves of chin and frock.

Seurat (1859-91), Le Chahut, 1889-90, o/c, 170 x 141 cm., Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

Reactions amongst Seurat’s peers, colleagues and critics were so diverse as to be bewildering; the artist Emile Verhaeren explained his use of painted borders around his work as, literally, a theatrical device:

‘He recollected how in Bayreuth the theatre was darkened before presenting the performance, bathed in light, as the single focus of attention.  This contrast between full light and darkness caused him to use dark frames – but retaining the complementaries, as before’ [51].

Pissarro, on the other hand, who had been in favour of Seurat’s early experiments with borders of flecked colour around his studies, disliked the effect of the worked-up borders and frames on the finished paintings. An exhibition of Seurat’s pictures after his death caused Pissarro to write to Lucien,

‘All his pictures are framed in chromatic colours and the ensemble gives the effect of an intense blue and violet stain: I find this disagreeable and discordant, it is not unlike the effect of plush! [52]‘

Théo Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926), L’Escaut en Amont d’Anvers le soir OR Voiliers sur l’Escaut, 1892, 66.7 x 90.5 cm., Sotheby’s, 21 June 2017,  Lot 59

Félix Fénéon thought much the same, describing this type of painted frame as

‘…like a halo, fluorescing in various gradations of purple. The frame has lost its neutral status, taking on an existence of its own…’ [53]

Seurat (1859-91), View of Crotoy from upstream, 1889, 98.7 × 114.6 × 4.1 cm. incl. frame, Detroit Institute of Arts

Paul Signac, however, looking again at the framed pictures in 1894, several years after Seurat’s death, could only praise them:

‘Saw again the paintings of Seurat in his mother’s living-room.  The last seascapes of Crotoy… in their coloured frames, are marvels. It is as though a soft and harmonious light is glowing on the walls’ [54].

Thirty years later the Symbolist critic, Gustave Kahn, saw Seurat’s borders and frames as continuing experiments which had never quite arrived at a satisfactory result:

‘Seurat was contemptuous of the gilded frame, which in his eyes was like a fairground piece of gold braid around the coloured canvas. The fluted white frame which he had first adopted soon repelled him: it was a barrier around the picture, an interruption. It did not isolate it from the wall, but instead disrupted the harmonies, rending them apart… He tried to deal with this by painting the canvas with a border echoing in dots of colour the tones of the painting; then he painted the frame – but, having done so, he still didn’t think it enough’ [55].

Paul Signac (1863-1935), Saint-Tropez. La bouée rouge, o/c, 81.2 x 65 cm., Musée d’Orsay

Signac himself preferred to rely mostly on white frames in Degas’s ‘pipe’ pattern, sometimes with the top edge gilded; although in 1899 he flirted with an even more wholesale approach:

Signac, Mont Saint-Michel: setting sun, 1897, 66.04 × 81.6 cm., Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, montaged with original frame of Monet, Artist’s garden at Giverny, 1900, Musée d’Orsay

‘… I also tried that lovely gold frame of Monet’s.  Around predominantly purple effects like my Mont St-Michel, this gilding does no harm, although it takes away some of the strength, but around gold and orange-tinted tones it kills the entire painting.  So, theory and practice go together.’

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For Van Gogh’s frames, see ‘Book review: Martin Bailey, The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece…’

For more on Burne-Jones, see ‘Burne-Jones’s picture frames’

For the previous parts of this subject, see:

What artists, critics & collectors say about frames: Part 1

What artists, critics & collectors say about frames: Part 2

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[1] Boyer d’Agen, Ingres d’après une correspondance inédite, Paris 1909,  p. 322. Internet Archive

[2] Ibid., p. 90

[3] Ibid., pp. 292-93

[4] Ibid., pp. 294

[5] Ibid., August 1840

[6] Ibid., September 1840

[7] Ibid.,p. 158

[8] Ibid., p. 160

[9] Eugène Delacroix, further correspondence, 1817-63, OUP, 1991, 15 March 1858, p. 151. Internet Archive. For the Haro shop, see also ‘Haro et la rue Visconti’. As the various Haros dealt in antiques, the Rococo frame found by Delacroix for his ‘animal picture’ for the General may perhaps have come from their collection

[10] Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, London, 1906

[11] See also ‘Burne-Jones’s picture frames’

[12] Memorials of Burne-Jones, op. cit.

[13] Fiona McCarthy, The last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones & the Victorian imagination, chapter 12: see the catalogue of the Arts Council exhibition, Burne-Jones: The paintings, graphic & decorative work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, 1833-98, by John Christian, Hayward Gallery, Southampton and Birmingham, 1975-76, no 350

[14] Oliver Garnett, ‘The letters and collection of William Graham – Pre-Raphaelite patron and pre-Raphael collector’, Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 62, 2000, p.153

[15] Identified by Garnett as a Salvator Mundi attributed to Cimabue, 81 x 86 cm., private collection; ibid., p. 317; the drawing is from letter B55, Burne-Jones to Graham, p. 279. See under ‘Giotto/Rimini’, Cavallini to Veronese

[16] A.M.W. Stirling, William De Morgan and his wife, London, 1922. For Vacani, see the Directory of British picture framemakers 1600-1950, on the National Portrait Gallery website

[17] See ‘Burne-Jones’s picture frames’

[18] See ‘What artists, critics & collectors say about frames: Part 1’

[19] Memorials of Burne-Jones, op. cit.

[20] Letter from Val Prinsep to Albert Moore, 26 August 1871, private collection, England; information supplied by Hilary Morgan

[21] The correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow online edition, no 09182, 18 January 1873

[22] Ibid., 08794, 2/9 November 1872

[23] See ‘How Pre-Raphaelite frames influenced Degas and the Impressionists’

[24] Michel-Eugène Chevreul, The laws of colour contrast, transl. 1854, ed. 1861, p.50. Internet Archive

[25] Georges Lecomte, ‘Camille Pissarro’, Les hommes d’aujourd’hui, vol. 8, no 366, 1890, unpaginated, quoted by Isabelle Cahn, Cadres de peintres, 1989, p. 68

[26] Georges Roque, ‘Chevreul’s colour theory and its consequences for artists’, The Colour Group, 2011

[27] Jacques, ‘Menus propos’, L’Homme libre, 12 April 1877, quoted by Martha Ward, ‘Impressionist installations and private exhibitions’, The Art Bulletin, vol. 73, no 4, December 1991, p. 610, note 38

[28] Lionel Abel, Lucien Pissarro & John Rewald, Camille Pissarro: Letters to his son Lucien, p. 22, 28 February 1883

[29] Ibid., p. 28

[30] Ibid., p. 31, 15 May 1883

[31] Ibid., p. 103, 17 March 1887

[32] Jennifer Thompson, Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art, 2007, p. 62

[33] Letters to his son Lucien, op. cit., p. 126

[34] Ibid., p. 135, 9 September 1889. Possibly this gouache?

[35] Emile Zola, L’Oeuvre, 1886

[36] J.K. Huysmans, L’Art moderne/ Certains, 1883, reprinted 1975, p. 251

[37] Lecomte, op. cit.

[38] Henri Havard, ‘L’exposition des artistes independants’, Le Siècle, 3 April 1881

[39] Champfleury, Journal, 1882, p. 37; quoted by Cahn, op. cit., p.69

[40] Cahn, op. cit., p. 70

[41] See ‘How Pre-Raphaelite frames influenced Degas and the Impressionists’

[42] See ‘G.F. Watts: framing myths and portraits’,

[43] Julie Codell, ‘On the Grosvenor Gallery, 1877-90’

[44] Catherine Roach, ‘The ecosystem of exhibitions: venues, artists, and audiences in early 19^th century London’, British Art Studies,  iss. 14, 29 November 2019

[45] Kenneth John Myers, Mr Whistler’s Gallery: Pictures at an 1884 exhibition, exh. cat., Freer Gallery of Art, 2003, p. 5

[46] ‘The Whistler exhibition’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 5, no 4, April 1910, p. 85

[47]  Letters to his son Lucien, op. cit., pp. 22-23, 28 February 1883

[48] Huysmans, ‘L’exposition des indépendants en 1880’, L’Art moderne, 1883, 1975 ed., p. 251

[49] Myers, op. cit., p. vi, quoting The Critic, 16 March 1889

[50] Seurat, letter to Maurice Beaubourg, 28 August 1890, reproduced in Eva Mendgen, ed., In perfect harmony, 1995, p. 161, and by Seulkee Kang and Sungju Woo, ‘Expressing gestures and emotions: use of lines in Georges Seurat’s paintings’, January 2018

[51] John Rewald, Seurat, 1959, p. 22, quoted by Cahn, op. cit., note 87, p. 87

[52] Letters to his son Lucien, op. cit., p. 156, 30 March 1891

[53] Félix Fénéon, ‘L’Exposition des Independants’, L’Art moderne, 15 April 1888, pp. 161-62

[54] John Rewald, transl., ‘Excerpts from the unpublished diary of Paul Signac, I, 1894-95’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXVI, 1949

[55] Gustave Kahn, ‘Au temps du pointillisme’, Le Mercure de France, 1 April 1924, pp. 13-14, quoted by Cahn, op. cit., note 88, p. 87