The Frame Blog

This is the video of a symposium which took place on 5 December 2023 at the National Portrait Gallery, as part of London Art Week.

Matthew Reeves, a director at Sam Fogg, moderated a discussion between Peter Schade, Head of the National Gallery’s Framing Department, Paul Mitchell, of Paul Mitchell Ltd,  and Lynn Roberts, described as ‘a critical look at the ways in which the fashions for frames have changed wildly over the course of the past half-millennium’.

(It’s 1 hour 21 minutes long, including a short interval for questions at the end; the page containing the video has a link to a transcription of the talk, which has evidently been taken down phonetically by AI software without an art historical vocabulary, and also includes all the ers and ums, to hilarious effect).

The works of art referred to in the discussion have been added below, with their details and locations.

The genesis of the modern frame

Altar frontal, 13^th century, Oldsaksamlingen, Kulturhistorisk Museum

La Seu d’Urgell workshop, box altar from Andorra, first third 13^th century, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

Thornham Parva dossal, St Mary’s church, Thornham Parva, Suffolk (above), and the pendant frontal, now in Musée de Cluny, Paris (below),  both c.1330s-40s, in a reconstruction of their original relationship, when in Thetford Priory, Norfolk

Orvieto Cathedral, Umbria, 1290-1591. Photo: Hans Peter Schaefer

Giovanni di Pietro da Pisa (Lo Spagna, c.1450-1528, of Umbria), Madonna & Child with saints, early 16^th century, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; the altarpiece takes on the architectural composition of a church façade

Original frames

Simone Martini (1284-1344), St Luke, 1330s,  67.5 × 48.3 cm., Getty Museum

Van Eyck (1390-1441), Margaret van Eyck, 1439, 25 x 32.6 cm., Groeningemuseum, Bruges

Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743), Antoine Pâris, c.1724, o/c, 144.7 × 110.5 cm., National Gallery

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), Jacobus Blauw, 1795, o/c,  92 x 73 cm., National Gallery

Integrated interiors: the German Auricular style

The Blauer Saal with 17^th century Auricular stuccowork, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig-Holstein

Jacob van Doordt (fl.1606-d.1629), Prinz Adolf von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, 1621, in Auricular frame, Schloss Gottorf

Christoph Wild (fl. 17^th century), German silver gilt ewer, 1616-20, Sotheby’s, 8 November 2023, Lot 10 

Integrated interiors: the Palladian style, William Kent and Houghton Hall

William Kent (c.1685-1748), elevation for the north wall of the Saloon, Houghton Hall, 1725, private collection

The Saloon at Houghton Hall

William Kent (c.1685-1748), chair, one of a suite for Houghton Hall

Murillo (1618-82), Adoration of the shepherds, 1646-50, o/c, 197 x 147 cm., in Kent frame, from Houghton Hall, now in State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

Integrated interiors: the Rococo style in furnishings, paintings, frames

Germaine Boffrand (1667-1754), Hôtel Soubise, Paris. Photo: René Biemans

Germaine Boffrand (1667-1754), Elevation of state bedchamber showing Tremolières’s Hercules & Hebe set into boiseries, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, pen, ink and wash, detail; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Charles Tremolières (1703-39), Hercules & Hebe, Hôtel de Soubise

Jan van Eyck: The Arnolfini marriage portrait and its frames

Jan van Eyck (fl.1422-d.1441), The Arnolfini portrait, 1434, o/panel, 82.2 x 60 cm., National Gallery: a reconstruction of its possible appearance when in the collection of Carlos II of Spain, c.1700:
‘…with two doors that close; with its matte gold tempera frame: some verses from Ovid written in the frame…the doors are made of wood painted like marble…’

The shutters would have been marbled on the backs, rather than the fronts; this montage uses the frame of Van Eyck’s Man in a turban, with the marbled panels visible to give an impression of the work in 1700.

Van Eyck in 19^th century Netherlandish style ripple frame

Van Eyck in oak moulding frame made in 1977

Van Eyck in 19^th century frame from National Gallery storage; returned to the painting in 1998

A Tudor portrait and its original frame

Unknown artist, Catherine of Aragon, c.1520, o/panel, 52 x 42 cm., National Portrait Gallery, on loan from the Church Commissioners for England

Changing fashion and the affordable domestic altarpiece

Antonio Rossellino (1427/28-79), Madonna & Child, 1460s, marble, 67 x 51.5 cm., State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

Rossellino workshop, Madonna & Child, 1460-75, polychrome stucco and moveable wooden frame, 79.06 cm. high, Currier Museum of Art

Rossellino workshop, Madonna & Child, second half 15^th century, stucco copy with integral frame, 81.5 x 50.5 cm., Musée du Louvre

Rossellino workshop, Madonna & Child, c.1470, stucco copy with integral frame, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Photo: arthistory390

Rossellino workshop, Madonna & Child, stucco copy, c.1470,  87 x 49 cm., in outer Mannerist scrolled bracket frame, 16^th century, Pandolfini sale, 26 October 2023, Lot 18

Ghirlandaio’s Madonna & Child and its history of frames in the National Gallery

Domenica Ghirlandaio (1449-94), Madonna & Child in 19^th century frame, photographed in the National Gallery in 1937

Ghirlandaio, Madonna & Child in 17^th century Bolognese frame, photographed in 1962

Ghirlandaio, Madonna & Child in 1990s replica of 15^th century frame

Ghirlandaio, Madonna & Child in antique 15^th century frame, applied in 2023

Reframing Pontormo

Pontormo (1494-1557), Portrait of a halberdier, 1529-30, o/c on panel, 95.3 x 73 cm., Getty Center, in previous Venetian giltwood frame

Pontormo (1494-1557), Portrait of a halberdier, 1529-30, Getty Center, reframed in an antique Tuscan Mannerist frame

When frames are spectacularly right – and where they go hideously wrong

Bernini (1598-1680), St Peter’s chair and Glory, 1657-66, gilt bronze over wood, alabaster, gilded stucco, St Peter’s Basilica, Rome 

Verrocchio (1435-88) & Leonardo (1452-1519), Baptism of Christ, c.1470-75, tempera & oil/panel, 177 x 151 cm., Gallerie degli Uffizi 

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