FAMAG 1923.14
British Victorian revival of an eighteenth-century Rococo frame, with swept rails; decorated with applied composition ornament: asymmetric rocaille corners and centres, with rinceaux, acanthus tip sight and inner slip; probably regilded. British Victorian revival of an eighteenth-century Rococo frame, with swept rails; decorated with applied composition ornament: asymmetric rocaille corners and centres, with rinceaux, acanthus tip sight and inner slip; probably regilded.
About this work
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Melville, Arthur, ARSA RWS (1855-1904): The Peasant Girl (The Faggot Collector), signed and dated 1880, oil on canvas, 103 x 69 cms. Presented to the Corporation of Falmouth in 1923 by Alfred A. de Pass, in memory of his sons.
More information about the frame
This is another example of the Victorian magpie instinct for reviving, borrowing and re-casting. Here a simplified version of a Rococo pattern has been used to frame a work by one of the Glasgow Boys, who would have been rather surprised to see this unexpected pairing. The Glasgow Boys, although a loose and disparate group, had various common concerns, including their subjects, their technique, and their picture frames. Several of the group designed their own frames, the general style of which was Arts and Crafts moderated by a Celtic influence. Gilt oak was used, and unusual textures, such as an embossed leather-like insert which was laid onto friezes and gilded; these accorded with the painterly brushwork and shallow space as seen here in Melville?s painting.
Frame supplied by Doig, Wilson & Wheatley, Fine Art Dealers and Printsellers, Picture Restorers and Framers, 90 George Street, Edinburgh.
About the Artist
Arthur Melville was a landscape and figure painter who is celebrated for his skills in watercolour. He was born in Loanhead-of-Guthrie, Forfar, Scotland and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy School under John Campbell Noble. In 1878 he moved to Paris and attended the Academie Julian. He then lived for a while at the artists' colony in Grez-sur-Loing, France, and sold the paintings he produced there to finance journeys to North Africa and India in the autumn of 1880.
From around 1884 he worked closely with several of the pioneering young painters known as the Glasgow Boys in Scotland and London. He continued to travel widely throughout his life, including visiting Spain and Algiers with Frank Brangwyn in 1892. He died tragically aged 49 from typhoid caught during his last trip to Spain.