FAMAG 1000.21
British artist's frame from the last quarter of the nineteenth century with architrave profile; the deep canted frieze reeded between fillets, with bevelled inlay to sight; finished in matt and burnished water-gilding; supplied by Paul Mitchell Limited. (r)
About this work
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Richardson, John Thomas (1860-1942): The Manor Yard, The Bar, Falmouth, signed and dated 1927, oil on panel, 35 x 25 cms. Presented by the artist's wife 1939.
More information about the frame
A design springing from the reeded patterns introduced by Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti, and refined by Albert Moore and Whistler, the reeded artist?s frame took many forms during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Instead of the flat architrave forms favoured by the former artists, the reeded toruses used by Whistler and the large reeded cushion designed by Degas, this combines a version of the early nineteenth century avant-garde canted frame with close-set reeding. It is an enhanced version of the perspectival window type of setting, and creates such a strong feeling of recession that we seem to be about to step through a door frame into the yard beyond. The painting itself contains a version of this same optical device, with the arched gateway or passage giving onto the sunlit houses in the middle ground, so that the spectator seems to be moving through a long enfilade of light and shadowed spaces.