The Frame Blog

The Frame Blog now has a new section (accessible, like the Archives, Contributors, etc., from the header, above), which contains drawings and designs for frames, organized by nationality within century. These are taken mainly from the drawings departments of large museums and similar institutions; occasionally from commercial galleries and auction houses; and each drawing is linked back to its source. As well as designs for altarpieces and moveable frames, the subjects include wall elevations containing frames, some designs for engravings of frames or book frontispieces and illustrations where these seem significant, and drawings of details of ornaments or profiles.

There may not seem to be many entries in some categories, but en masse there are quite a number, and it is intended that these will be added to over time. Large collections, such as the Musée du Louvre, the Royal Collection Trust, the Getty, the Rijksmuseum, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the V & A, the Prado, the Pierpoint Morgan Library, the Uffizi, the Statens Museum for Kunst, the Städel Frankfurt, the Dresden museum, the Riccardi Library, the Albertina, the Fondation Custodia, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Ashmolean, etc., have all been explored, but of course there are many more unravished hoards to sift for their treasures.

The texts beneath each drawing are taken from the source entries – mostly wholesale, but sometimes truncated where they are massively verbose.

The image above is composed of drawings from the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, from various countries, and from various collections, as a sort of composite example to stand for the whole collection:

Anon., 15^th century Italian school, recto: grotesque designs for a pilaster ornament, pen-&-ink, black chalk, 28.1 x 20.7 cm., The Morgan Library & Museum

Anon., Spanish school, design for an altarpiece or tabernacle, late 16^th century, pencil, wash, 28 x 18 cm., Museo del Prado

Netherlandish School, c.1575-1600, design for decoration for part of an oval frame with grotesque figures, swags, strapwork, &c., pen-&-ink, wash, heightening, 35 x 26.5 cm.; Royal Collection Trust. RCIN 910941

Anon., Italian school (possibly Florentine), design for a frame, with details, c.1610-25, pen-&-ink, 20.7 x 12.7 cm., Rijksmuseum

Bernini (studio; 1598-1680), drawing for the high altar, San Tommaso da Villanueva, Castel Gandolfo, c.1658-60, pen-&-ink, wash, black chalk, 24.5x 18.1 cm., Royal Collection Trust. RCIN 905615

Anon., Low Countries?, design for leaf frame, 17th century, pencil, red chalk, 16.8 x 17.2 cm., Rijksmuseum

Thomas Chippendale (1718-79), design for a chimneypiece, in Chippendale drawings, vol. I, c.1753-62, pencil, 17.5 x 8.4 cm., Metropolitan Museum, New York

Jean Louis Prieur II (attrib.; 1759-95), design for a frame for a portrait or cameo with four alternate options for the corners, last quarter 18^th century, pen-&-ink, wash, 18.6 x 14.5 cm., Rijksmuseum

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