The Frame Blog

Paolo Uccello (c.1397-1475), Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano, c.1438-40, tempera on panel, 182 x 320 cm., bought 1857, National Gallery, London

Uccello’s large, spectacular and decorative battle scene of ornamentally-caparisoned knights on rocking-horse chargers has been framed for a century and-a-half in a distracting Victorian interpretation of a Romanesque billet moulding. Now it has been given a frame decorated with wooden inlay or intarsia, for which Uccello himself made designs, and using the kind of geometric, architectural ornament in which he was interested.

Inlay and intarsia in 15^th and 16^th century Italy

The period when Uccello was experimenting with linear perspective, and more especially when he was working on his triptych of paintings of the Battle of San Romano, is also the period when the art of intarsia – or of inlaying different species, tones and colours of wood –  was married with the art of perspective, creating walls of illusionary images and trompe l’oeil, carried out in jigsaw puzzles of complicated wooden veneers over whole walls and façades of built-in cupboards and choir stalls. The panels of images and scenes were framed in pilasters and friezes which were decorated with intarsia ornament of all kinds, from scrolling or undulating foliate vines and vertical candelabrum motifs to Greek frets, guilloche and imbricated dart patterns.

Spanish inlaid octagonal casket, late 12^th or early 13^th century, Nasrid period, wood, ivory, bone, with metal mounts, 15.6 x 14.1 x 13.9 cm., Metropolitan Museum, New York

Spanish inlaid writing desk, 14^th century, Nasrid period, pinewood, ivory, bronze, polychrome, 20.2 x 44 x 28.3 cm., Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid

The practice of intarsia or inlay seems to have entered Italy from Spain and Portugal, where it was established during the Arab Nasrid dynasty, and was known as taracea. Nasrid rule was centred on the kingdom of Granada and included its surrounding territories; it lasted from 1232 to 1492. The avoidance of figurative art in the Islamic world meant that the decoration of these inlaid pieces consisted of complex geometric knots, and running patterns which were used for bands and borders. On the two pieces above, there are examples of borders with interlacing, stepped zigzags, and narrow interrupted bands around the octagonal casket, and, as well as these, various chain patterns on the writing desk. Because of the geometric nature of the patterns and the technique for inlaying, it was easier for the lines of all the motifs to be straight, rather than curved. These works also incorporated ivory and bone, as well as different species of wood [1].

Embriachi workshop (attrib.), casket with scenes of life in Paris, c.1390-1400, wood and bone, Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers. Photo: Adrian

In the 14^th century the Embriachi clan, who seem originally to have been Genoese, were producing their own versions of wood and ivory inlay on caskets and the frames of looking-glasses and small altarpieces. They worked at first in Florence (from c.1375), later moving to Venice, but almost certainly spawned other workshops belonging to family branches or imitators in other locations. Like the Spanish Nasrid objects, their products were decorated with bands of geometric motifs, but in this case framing figurative carved ivory or bone plaques.

Cosmati pavement, 1268, porphyry, serpentine, limestone, onyx, glass, on Purbeck marble ground, 758 x 758 cm., Westminster Abbey

Simultaneously with the development of these methods of using wooden and other inlays to decorate furniture and small luxury items, the technique of stone inlay (said to originate in Byzantium) diffused through Italy, reaching high points in the work of the Cosmati in Rome, and in, for instance, the floor of the Duomo in Siena. The Cosmati travelled outside Rome to work, coming to London at the behest of Henry III to lay the great pavement in Westminster Abbey. This is purely geometric, like Islamic art, but – unlike the specimens of Nasrid intarsia discussed above – uses curved lines as well as straight, expressed in roundels connected by looped borders and sections of guilloche in the corners.

Floor of the Duomo, Siena: a rectangular panel with The Wheel of Fortune, 1372, and borders of guilloche, acanthus-&-lily and plain polychrome bands framing hexagonal figural panels, 15^th century onwards

Guilloche occurs again in the floor of the Duomo, Siena, where realistic figures and highly-developed, almost painterly scenes were set into panels framed in multiple bands of running ornament; these probably owe a debt both to classical mosaics and to carved Roman architectural ornament. The floor was begun in 1372 with The Wheel of Fortune panel, continued to expand through the 15^th and 16^th centuries, and was restored in the 18^th and 19^th.

The coming together of these various uses of and approaches to inlay must be the catalyst for the growth and increasing sophistication of wooden intarsia in Italy through the 15^th and 16^th centuries. One of the earlier surviving examples is that of the choir stalls in the new chapel of the Palazzo Pubblica, Siena; these were made in 1415-28 by Domenico di Niccolò, architect, woodworker, carver, designer,  and sculptor. Domenico was appointed master of the fabric of the cathedral, and probably made at least one panel of the floor in the Duomo, but his most celebrated achievement was the wooden choir stalls.

Domenico di Niccolò (c.1362-d. before 1453), choir stalls, 1415-28, chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Photos: Web Gallery of Art

He was even known as ‘dei Cori’ because of them. They are built like a polyptych in aedicular form, with a large entablature balanced on carved, projecting modillions, and inlaid figurative panels in decorative frames between slender inlaid pilasters. The carved roundels beneath the pictorial panels are decorated with motifs which again seem to derive from Islamic patterns, entering Italy either from Spain or Venice. The inner rectilinear frames on the upper tier have raised florets and quatrefoils on their friezes, and on the lower tier imbricated chisels marks, and there are other small decorative mouldings and spiralling or guilloche inlays. The figurative scenes – like Uccello’s paintings, although begun more than twenty years earlier – employ linear perspective, of a rather eccentric and not fully realized kind.

Giuliano (1432-90) & Benedetto da Maiano (1442-97), studiolo from the Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio, c. 1478-82, walnut, beech, rosewood, oak, fruitwood on walnut ground, 485 x 518 x 384 cm., now Metropolitan Museum, New York

The studiolo executed by the Maiano brothers, now in the Metropolitan Museum, is half a century later than the Sienese choir stalls and is correspondingly more developed and sophisticated. It was probably designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1502), and was made for Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Gubbio. The whole room is panelled with trompe l’oeil intarsia, from the floor up to the bottom of the carved cornice and around all four walls, with a variety of illusionary desks, shelves and open cupboards, framed in fluted pilasters and guilloche friezes with trompe l’oeil ‘carved’ wooden mouldings. It is a high point in the practice of intarsia, and demonstrates how the art had evolved in its ability to reproduce painted scenes, still life and architecture.

Fra Damiano Zambelli of Bergamo (c.1480-1549), choir stalls, 1528-49, San Domenico, Bologna (finished in 1551 by Fra Bernardino). Photos: Adrian

Another high point is the particularly large and grand choir made in the first half of the 16^th century by Fra Damiano Zambelli in the church of San Domenico, Bologna [2]. The carved body of the stalls was made by the carpenter Stefano da Bergamo, and comprises two tiers of seats – 56 above and 46 below – the upper tier backed by panels with pictorial scenes from the Old Testament on the right, and the New Testament on the left. According to the caption in the church itself, this choir has been called ‘the eighth wonder of the world’.

Fra Damiano Zambelli, pictorial panel, and detail of another with Christ riding into Jerusalem, from choir stalls, San Domenico. Photos: Adrian

Vasari, in his description of intarsia, mentions Fra Damiano as one of the artists who used chemical treatments of their wood to colour it:

‘…oil of sulphur and corrosive sublimate and preparations of arsenic, with which substances they have obtained the hues that they desired, as is seen in the work of Fra Damiano in San Domenico in Bologna’ [3].

The wood has almost certainly lost a great deal both of its original and enhanced colouring, due to its exposure to nearly half a millennium of sunlight; this must have increased when the whole choir was moved in the early 17^th century from its original place in front of the altar to the apse, which has six great windows, flooding the space with light. The scenes are extremely detailed, with perspectival recession whizzing off into the far distance, from the depiction (in the upper panel above) of a dog and cat eating at the very front of the panel, to the buildings in the distance.

The frames are more complex and decorative than in, for example, the much earlier choir stalls by Domenico di Niccolò; the pilasters are inlaid with light-on-dark candelabrum ornament, and the inner rectilinear frames with dark-on-light arabesques. The whole erection is a breathtakingly rich and varied creation.

Short end of the bancone  in the choir of San Domenico. Photo: Adrian

The bancone in the middle of the choir is also the work of Fra Damiano (made in 1537), with images of the instruments of Christ’s Passion and musical instruments held in frames decorated with stringing in a different, much paler wood, between fluted columns carved in the round. The end panels have the appearance of small altarpieces, although the images from Christ’s Passion are emblematic rather than figural scenes.

Uccello, the Sacristy of Masses, and the geometry of perspective

Sacristy of the Masses, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, entrance wall. Photo: Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore

The Sacristy of Masses in the Florence Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore) is another outstanding creation in the practice of Renaissance intarsia, and is particularly interesting in the context of the Battle of San Romano, because of Uccello’s association with its decoration. Like the Gubbio studiolo, the sacristy is completely covered on the inside with intarsia panels; these, the framing elements and carved work were made over a thirty-year period, by two generations of artists and craftsmen [4], and include figural scenes with as great a command of perspective as the still life and architectural panels in the studiolo. The Maiano brothers who made the latter also worked on the intarsia of the sacristy, where Giuliano’s involvement is documented, and that of Benedetto and his son Giovanni is attributed – the trompe l’oeil open cupboards with their latticed doors and still life arrangements of objects are very close indeed to those in the studiolo.

Intarsia in the Sacristy of Masses, 1436-68, Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo), Florence, and detail. Photos: Sailko

The framing elements in the Sacristy are fluted pilasters with leafy capitals, and inlaid friezes with undulating bands of flowers and buds. The woods used (for both carved work and inlay) were maple, mulberry, walnut, pear, poplar and oak [5].  The cartoons for the inlaid panels are attributed, amongst others such as Lo Scheggia and Antonio Manetti, to Paolo Uccello for the north wall of the room [6], but he may perhaps also have provided drawings – or just ideas – for some of the geometric decoration.

Uccello (attrib.; c.1397-1475), a stellated dodecahedron mosaic inset in the floor of the basilica of San Marco, 15^th century, Venice

After his apprenticeship with Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence, Uccello had moved to Venice, where he lived for five years from his late twenties to early thirties. His work at that point included designing mosaics for the façade and interior of San Marco, only one of which – in the floor of the basilica – seems to have survived. It combines the representation in two dimensions of an illusionary three-dimensional geometric figure – a twelve-pointed star – within a tondo frame decorated with a similarly illusionary necklet of hexagonal beads threaded on a string. From the point of view of Uccello’s paintings, it represents the abstraction from linear perspective in the natural world to the mathematical forms which underlie it, and is another aspect of his struggle to express a coherently-imagined scene of spatial recession and volumetric figures in line and colour.

Uccello’s use of complex geometric figures in paintings and drawings and his presence in Venice seem to comprise the evidence for attributing this particular mosaic to his design [7], but it does fit in with the similar attribution to him of some of the designs for the intarsia in the Sacristy of Masses.

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Mazzocchio vu en perspective, 15^th century, pen, ink & wash, 15.6 x 23.5 cm., Département des arts graphiques, Musée du Louvre

Uccello (c.1397-1475), study of a vase in perspective, pen & ink, 34.9 x 24.3 cm., Gabinetto dei Disegni, Gallerie degli Uffizi. Photo: Sailko

The drawings above (also attributed to him fairly consistently) or others like them, drew down Vasari’s disapproval on Uccello’s head seventy years or more after his death, when he became one of the most excellent painters in Vasari’s art historical chronicles:

‘…Paolo Uccello… being endowed by Nature with a sophistical and subtle disposition, took pleasure in nothing except the investigation of difficult and impossible questions of perspective; and although these were fanciful and fine, yet they affected his treatment of figures so much that they became worse and worse as he grew older….

Thus, when Paolo showed his intimate friend, Donatello the sculptor, mazzocchi… represented in perspective from different points of view, spheres with seventy-two facettes [sic] like diamonds… with other oddities upon which he wasted his time, the sculptor would say, ‘Ah, Paolo, this perspective of yours leads you to abandon the certain for the uncertain; such things are only useful for marquetry, in which chips and oddments, both round and square, and other like things, are necessary’.’ [8]

In this extract, writing a century or more after the fact and spicing his book with imagined dialogue, Vasari connects perspectival drawings of mazzocchi (doughnut-shaped rings expressed as faceted toruses, which were copied as fashionable Florentine hats) with Uccello’s fascination with perspective, and with the creation of geometric figures inlaid in wood.

Uccello (c.1397-1475), The life of Noah: the Flood subsiding, c. 1440 or 1447, fresco, 215 x 510 cm., detail, the Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Photo: MenkinAIRire

Here, in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, Uccello introduces the mazzocchio into his fresco’d Life of Noah, putting an example around the neck of one of Noah’s sons, like very rigid snood, and setting the other more conventionally on the head of one of his daughters-in-law.

Together with the drawings and the San Marco mosaic (where the tondo of hexagonal beads is really a chopped-up mazzocchio), what might appear to be a somewhat vague chain of references begins to accumulate as a sufficient evidence to indicate that one of Uccello’s many different skills or interests was in the production of designs for figural and still life panels and decorative borders for intarsia work.

Intarsia in the Sacristy of Masses, 1436-68, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Sailko

The mazzocchio appears several times in the range of panels to the left of the door in the Sacristy of Masses (although these designs are credited to Antonio Manetti and Nanni di Nardo); the panels create the illusion of half-doors beneath upper openings into a set of cupboards, in which festoons of oak leaves depend from the ceilings, passing through internal openings from cupboard to cupboard, and appearing to hang behind the real carved pilasters which frame the panels. On the half-doors there are inlaid mazzocchi seen from above, providing tondo frames for, from the left, a geometrically-formed daisy, a realistic Lamb of God with banner, and a windmilling flower like a chrysanthemum. If these designs are not by Uccello himself, they are made at approximately the same time as he was painting the same motif in Santa Maria Novella, and probably also when he was involved in other designs for the Sacristy woodwork. Certainly, the upper narrow frieze in the cupboard below, just under the top surface, is decorated with a series of square beads, each individually pierced by a narrow baton or cord – very similarly to the necklet of hexagonal beads in the floor of San Marco, Venice.

Intarsia on one of the floor-level cupboards in the Sacristy of Masses, 1436-68, Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo), Florence. Photo: Peter Schade

For all this amorphous but significant body of reasons, the inlaid ornament in the Sacristy provided an important source when a new frame for the Battle of San Romano was mooted.

The history of Uccello’s triptych of paintings

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano, c.1438-40, tempera on panel, 182 x 320 cm., bought 1857, National Gallery, London

The Battle of San Romano in the National Gallery is one of three large paintings of different episodes in the struggle between Florence and the allied armies of Lucca, Siena, Milan and Genoa in 1432.

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Battle of San Romano, c.1435-40, tempera on panel, 182 x 323 cm., acquired 1890, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

They were painted by Uccello in the late 1430s or early 1440s, probably for the politician Lionardo Bartolini Salimbeni, whose palazzo was at that time in a small Florentine street parallel to the Via Tornabuoni; and they celebrate Florence’s victory under Niccolò da Tolentino and his ally, Michelotto da Cotignola, over their combined enemies [9]. The room for which they were painted must have been mediaeval in form and possibly vaulted, since all three pictures were originally arched, with sections cut out at the bottom to accommodate architectural features.

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Battle of San Romano, c.1438-40, tempera on panel, 182 x 317 cm., Musée du Louvre

In 1479 Lionardo died, and the three paintings of this historic battle and victory for Florence came under the predatory eye of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He persuaded Andrea, one of Lionardo’s sons, to sell them to him in or around 1484, but the other son, Damiano, objected: not an especially good move, as Lorenzo seems to have sent his woodworker, Francione, to remove them bodily from the Palazzo Bartolini. Francione must have been employed not only for this removal of fixed panels, but for their adaptation to the interior of Lorenzo’s Camera Terrena in what is now the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. The arched tops were cut away, although not as far down as their springing points, and the V-shaped spaces between the top of the vertical sides and the new horizontal top edges were filled in with wooden spandrels, gessoed, and painted with orange trees – a Medici emblem – and with extensions of the soldiers’ lances [10]. The cut-out spaces at the bottom of the panels were also removed to make all three paintings rectangular. This radical reshaping accounts for their somewhat claustrophobic compositions, since they have lost whatever further landscape or sky might have risen above the battle.

In the second half of the 19^th century, all three works entered museums – the National Gallery in 1857, the Musée du Louvre in 1861, and the Uffizi in 1890. At some point the Louvre’s version was given a compound profile frame with a Baroque reverse section and six orders of ornament, possibly made from the decorative wooden borders of a ceiling or wall panelling, since few frames are produced on such a massive scale as to allow enough material for the centres and floral demi-centres to be positioned convincingly. This frame is later than the paintings, and far from the way in which they would have been framed originally – or even as they might have been displayed in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s palazzo; however, it has a strong presence, pushes the work forwards, and suggests an historic and architectural context.

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Battle of San Romano, National Gallery; detail of bottom right corner

Example of a carved stone billet moulding above a double capital, 12^th century, Romanesque cloister re-erected at Mas del Vent, Palamos, Costa Brava. Photo: The History Blog

The version belonging to the Uffizi was taken in the opposite direction, with a minimal projecting strip frame edging it; and the one in the National Gallery was given a sort of pseudo-mediaeval Victorian billet moulding, as though a mad collector of corks had emptied his cellars for an epic glueing session. None of these frames gave an idea of the period or style of the paintings, or paid attention to whether each of them might in various ways be a distraction from the painting.

Reframing Uccello’s Battle of San Romano: the design and models

Guilloche inlaid on one of the floor-level cupboards in the Sacristy of Masses, 1436-68, Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo), Florence. Photo: Peter Schade

Donatello (c. 1386-d.1466), Resurrection Pulpit, 1460-65, bronze, and detail, San Lorenzo, Florence. Photos: Web Gallery of Art & Peter Schade

The battle of San Romano had originally been set in some way into its first architectural home, where the presumed vaults of the ceiling and supporting corbels laid out the arched form and shaped base of all three works, and where there must have been some type of framing border which mediated between and held the painted panels to the walls. In this situation, the patterns of conventional 15^th century picture frames became rather questionable, whilst the colouring of the newly-restored painting demanded a particularly careful approach. The models chosen were from the Florence of the period of the paintings, or very slightly later: the guilloche in light wood on a darker from the floor-level cupboard in the Sacristy of the Masses, where Uccello himself had been one of the participating artists, and a chain of roundels carved into the wood, with the circular insides lowered, shaped as slightly convex, and gilded, from the Resurrection Pulpit by Donatello – a close friend of Uccello since their time together in Ghiberti’s workshop.

Making the frame and its decoration

Samples of ornament for the new frame, based on the models above

Peter Schade, Head of Framing at the National Gallery, made sample lengths of the two options and these were studied against the painting, together with the Director, Curator, Head of Conservation and the conservator working on the painting (Paul Ackroyd). It became obvious that the gilded roundels of the Donatello pattern echoed very closely in shape and size many of the round shapes in the painting – for example, the horse brasses, oranges and roses – and it was felt that this dynamic was undesirable. The flowing nature of the guilloche was less distracting.

The carcass of the frame was constructed by Stephen Guest, Framing Technician at the National Gallery.

Stephen has worked at the Gallery since 2019, having studied fine art but ended up working in joinery, making doors and windows, like his father – for example, producing two sets of doors for Historic England, for listed mausolea at Kensal Green Cemetery. Together with Josh Page, he helps in the construction of new frames like the present one, resizes antique frames, and looks after the glazing, as well as doing a bit of gilding and some  conservation work.

Detail of the reverse of the frame, showing in the centre the back of the walnut frieze which holds the inlaid pattern. Photo: Stephen Guest

He made the carcass from English poplar and Southern yellow pine from North America. The dark wood on the façade of the frame is French walnut, and the light wood used for the inlay is Castello boxwood, which has a very close grain. Regular wood glue was used to hold the inlays in place.

The inlaid frieze was made by Josh Page, Framing Technician

Josh has worked in the National Gallery, London, since 2016, and made the lengths of guilloche inlay for the new Battle of San Romano frame. He kindly agreed to be interviewed about the project for this article in The Frame Blog.

Josh with one length of his inlaid walnut frieze for The Battle of San Romano

The Frame Blog: Where did you learn all the skills you need for working with antique frames?

Josh Page: My dad is a carpenter, and so I grew up making all sorts of things from wood in his workshop, from toy sailing boats to adapted downhill go-karts. I also used to help him with the odd job when I was younger for some pocket money, fitting doors and flooring, etc., so I grew up with a good understanding of tools. And my grandad was a woodturner, so he taught me how to use the lathe, which has come in very useful and is something that I enjoy doing.  Later on I went to college and learnt carpentry for a couple of years, before I went to university to study fine art. So it’s interesting how two of my passions have come together in the work of framing.

I had a good understanding of tools and using wood before starting as a frame technician here, but a lot of my skills have been learnt on the job, watching my colleagues and how they use hand tools and work on frames. I suppose I’m quite a quick learner, and also there’s a very relaxed atmosphere in the framing department, allowing me to pick up things quite easily – enhancing my skills, and my knowledge of materials and how they can be used.

FB: How did you first get into this work, and how did you arrive at the Framing Department of the National Gallery? – it isn’t something that careers advisers tend to suggest!

JP: As I mentioned, I studied Fine Art at university, after which I was looking for a job in that area. I was advised to start looking for work in commercial art handling companies, and managed to get a job at Martinspeed, an art transportation company. I went to the interview and explained all my interests in art, to which they responded, ‘Do you know how to use a drill?’ I said ‘Yes’, and that was it – I got the job.

It was from there I got some gallery experience, and then I managed to get an art handing job in the National Gallery. I was in the department for a couple of years, always with an eye on the framing department, hoping a job would become available – and, with a bit of luck, it did! It was the perfect match for me, combining my two interests, in art and working with wood. And from that, and working within the department, I have gained an interest in antique frames too.

FB: Which part of the job do you most enjoy?

JP: I’ve always enjoyed making things, and working with my hands in general. In this job, we’re quite often faced with problems that can only be overcome by finding a physical solution through experiment, and this is very satisfying.

We make replica frames such as this current one for the Uccello, but we also adapt antique frames to fit pictures which have lost their original settings and been reframed to fit in with the contemporary fashion, or because of post-war changes. Peter Schade is always looking out for antique frames of the style and period which might suit a picture in the Gallery’s collection which needs to be reframed, and we adapt the frame to fit the painting. This is very rewarding, seeing a picture back in the kind of frame that the artist originally intended it to have; it gives you a closeness to the artist.

FB: And which frame on a National Gallery painting are you most proud of having worked on?

Rembrandt (1606-69), The woman taken in adultery, 1644, o/panel, 83.8 x 65.4 cm., National Gallery, NG 45

JP: I have worked on a number of frames that I’m proud of, including a couple of exceptional Netherlandish frames for Rembrandts and a very beautifully-made veneered fruitwood frame which went on a Brueghel.

Jan Brueghel the elder (1568-1625),  Adoration of the Magi, 1598, bodycolour on vellum, 32.9 x 48 cm., National Gallery, NG 3547

This was particularly interesting as I’m a big fan of Brueghel, and the frame was exquisitely made, so I really enjoyed working on it.

But this latest project – creating a frame for the Uccello – has to be the piece I am most proud of. We haven’t ever made a frame with inlaid decoration in the Gallery before, and so to figure out a way of making it, on such a scale, is an achievement I’m really proud of.

FB: Tell me how the new frame for the Battle of San Romano came about. What did you think of the old frame? and what did you think of the suggestions for replacing it?

Uccello (c.1397-1475), Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano, c.1438-40, tempera on panel, 182 x 320 cm., in previous frame. National Gallery

JP: To be honest, I didn’t mind  the old frame. It was quite unique within the Gallery with its cylindrical chequered carving. However, the brightness and boldness of the ornament together with the finish detracted from the picture.

With the painting now cleaned and restored, and having been given a frame which is visually darker, yet lighter in ‘feel’, this incredible picture has gained a new lease of life. You can now see much more detail in it. This is another painting the Gallery has introduced me to which I hadn’t really studied before, but now I’ve become very interested in it. The large swords – like light sabres – and the tones of the soldiers’ armour give it almost a science fiction-like feel.

FB: How did the replacement frame come to be your project? Had you ever made anything with inlaid decoration before, or was it completely new to you?

JP: I haven’t done anything like this before. The nearest thing to it is a three-string guitar (inspired by Picasso’s work) which I recently made, involving some inlay and veneer work, and giving me a little bit of understanding of what we shouldn’t do.

Picasso (1881-1973), Guitar (made in Céret, France), 1913, collage with newspaper, wallpaper, ink, chalk, charcola, pencil, on coloured paper, 66.4 x 49.6 cm., MOMA, New York

Picasso incorporated and adapted the guitar in many of his artworks; there was one in particular that I drew a lot of inspiration from – his collage Guitar, made in 1913 [11].

Josh Page, Picasso’s guitar

I was lucky enough to see a few of these on a recent trip to New York and came away with the idea of bringing a Picasso-inspired guitar to life. It’s fully electric and has a great blues sound. I hope to make a series of these, and for a better guitar-player than me to get their hands on it.

Apart from that, Peter is good at divvying up the work in the department – he suggested that this might be something which would maybe suit my skills and patience. But really it all started as a group discussion to figure out a way of doing it, and then I got the bit between my teeth and was really determined to come up with a solution. I did a bit of reading to find some inspiration, and got a few ideas, but really the problem was quite unique.

Traditionally, inlay and marquetry use very thin pieces of wood or veneer. In this case, we wanted the inlay to be thicker – around 3-4 mm. deep – so that when it was glued up, we could plane it back by hand to give the frame some movement and a hand-finished look. If traditional methods had been used, once the frieze was planed the inlay might have been lost to the surface below.

FB: How did you decide what you were going to do? Did you need to invent a new way of working, or new tools?

JP: We had several options for how we could create the pattern for the inlay. One was to use machinery, and maybe have the lengths of ornament laser-cut. This would have been very quick and given a perfect finish; however, we wanted – as I said – the frame to have some movement, and the feel of it having been made by hand. So next we thought about carving the guilloche entirely by hand, and my colleague, François Loudwig, carved an example; it looked beautiful, but would have taken a long time for the whole frame.

Finally we came up with a way of combining both methods, by using a router jig we made to create the grooves for the boxwood pieces to be fitted into. I finished these cuts by hand to give the movement. Then each piece of the guilloche and the central dots were cut on a band saw and turned on the lathe – this added to the movement within the frame, whilst speeding up the process.

FB: How long did it take you to make four runs of guilloche to go right round the frame? – and how long are they, altogether? You must sometimes have wondered how you had got into this job, and whether you were ever going to come to the end of it…

JP: It was quite a daunting prospect to begin with. When I was sitting at the end of the first length – just shy of four metres – the thought did cross my mind about how long it might take, especially as just before that we had calculated that around six hundred individual pieces would be needed for the whole frame. But within a few days I quickly got into a groove – I found that if I made around 40 cm. of inlay a day that was enough; anything more than that and the quality would drop off, along with my patience! It probably took a couple of months to finish at that pace; I can’t quite remember. I also had other things to do, in and amongst working on this frame, which was a useful distraction (although it also slowed the process down a bit).

FB: Tell me what the rest of the frame looks like, and how it was all put together and finished.

JP: We left the corners until last and gave a bit of space around each one, so that when it was glued up as a complete frame, if we needed to adjust any of the pattern by a millimetre or two to fit on the corners, we could. The inlay also covered the half-lap joint which makes up the corner, so that was another reason to leave it to the end.

A very short video

We added four lines of inlay (or stringing) – two on either side of the guilloche pattern to frame it, and two others on the inner and outer mouldings.

These pieces of inlaid boxwood were only 1.6 mm. in width, which helped give a lightness and fineness of detail to what is a very large frame. We did this by running the lengths of walnut on the table saw to cut the straight grooves, and then pushing the boxwood inlays into these grooves.

A very large frame

Another very short video

After sanding the frame to raise the grain, we brush warm water onto the bare wood. We then sand the frame back down once this is dried.  This helps give a smooth surface and helps to prevent the grain from rising once the finish is applied.

Amanda with the frame

Our gilder, Amanda Dickson, did the finishing of this frame, toning it to give it its aged look. I think the level of contrast between the two different woods was hard to get right and took quite a few attempts.

FB: As well as being wide and tall (the painting itself is 320 cm. across and 182 cm. high), the frame rail is very wide and deep, so it must weigh a great deal. How is a frame like that supported on the wall? – especially when it holds a wooden panel painting on eight poplar planks.

JP: We made sure that the frame is very sturdy. Stephen constructed the carcass of this frame to have opposing half-laps on each corner to insure its rigidity. We also chose to use woods with a lighter individual weight to help with the overall weight problem. Depending on where the picture is hung, the gallery wall may have to be reinforced to take the weight – but we do have a very good art-handling department, and they can design specific hanging techniques if the weight is too great for standard methods.

FB: Do you think that you will use this unusual and extraordinary skill again, to make another inlaid frame?

JP: I hope so! Let’s hope that one day all three of Uccello’s series of paintings can be displayed together in an exhibition, and we can put together a couple more frames for the other two panels. But even if that never happens, I’m sure that we’ll use this method again – I suppose we just have to find the right picture.

I have also made a dining-table for home with parts of the inlay in the table top – it’s a nice reminder of the work I did.

FB: What are you working on now, and is there a particular painting in the Gallery which you would really like to make a new frame for?

JP: I’m currently adapting a beautiful 15^th century Italian frame for Bellini’s Agony in the garden. This is interesting as the panel is concave, so we are constructing an inner frame to hold the panel safely, and then the glazing will lie on top of this, and in-between the slip and the actual frame. This is a great method if it’s done well, and then you don’t really notice the glazing.

FB: Thank you for a very interesting and unusual interview!

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You can follow Josh Page on Instagram @joshpagestudio, and Stephen Guest @guesteve. Peter Schade is on Twitter @psframes and François Loudwig on Instagram @francoisloudwig.

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[1] There is a brief history of wood intarsia, as far as it was known up to the early 20^th century, in the editorial notes at the end of Vasari on technique; being the introduction to the three arts of design, architecture, sculpture and painting, prefixed to the Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects, transl. Louisa Maclehose, 1907, London & New York, ch. XVII, pp. 303-07, Internet Archive

Vasari himself had a low opinion of intarsia, however good it might have appeared to be, seeing it as ‘counterfeit painting’, made by ‘persons possessing more patience than skill in design’; ibid., pp. 262-64

[2] Fra Damiano also completed carved and inlaid panels to line a domestic chapel in the Château de la Bastie d’Urfé, near Lyons, c.1547-48, including an altarpiece. This last would presumably have been framed as a single panel in an aedicular frame with entablature and pilasters or columns, like a more splendid version of the ‘frames’ in the choir stalls of San Domenico. Now Metropolitan Museum, New York

[3]  Ibid., p.263

[4] The list of craftsmen to whom work on the sacristy is attributed in the Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali is impressively long, and is taken from Margaret Haines’s 1982 monograph, published in 1983 as The ‘Sacrestia delle Messe’ of the Florentine Cathedral:

Agnolo di Lazzaro d’Arezzo (fl. c.1382)
Antonio Benci, called Antonio del Pollaiolo (1431/32-98)
Francesco Rosselli (c.1445/48-1513)
Domenico Bigordi, called Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94)
Benedetto da Maiano (attrib.; 1442-97)
Giovanni da Maiano (attrib.; 1487-c.1542?)
Mino da Fiesole (attrib.; c.1430-d.1484)
Andrea di Francesco, called Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-88)
Bernardo di Tommaso di Ghigo (1388-post 1470)
Francesco di Giovanni di Guccio (fl.1437-45)
Guidi Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called Lo Scheggia (1406/07-86)
Giuliano da Maiano (1432-90)
Maso Finiguerra (1426-64)
Alessio Baldovinetti (1425-99)
Antonio Manetti (1405-post 1458)
Nanni di Nardo (fl. first half 15^th century)

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] George Hart, ‘Paolo Uccello’s polyhedra’

[8] Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors & architects, in 2 vols (1550) and 3 vols (1568), transl. A.B. Hinds., 1927, London & New York, pp. 232-33, Internet Archive

[9] Daniele Parenti, catalogue entry, Battaglia di San Romano, Gallerie degli Uffizi

[10]  Ibid., and see Ashok Roy and Dillian Gordon, ‘Uccello’s Battle of San Romano’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 22, 2001

[11] See also information about the exhibition, ‘Picasso: Guitars 1912-14’, MOMA 2011 , and a gallery of 28 images from the exhibition, starting here