FAMAG 1993.2
A late nineteenth-century British artist?s frame (Alma-Tadema), with deeply canted bolection profile; step at back edge, undercut scotia and flutes to sight edge; finished with parcel-gilt rails and off-white body; supplied by Paul Mitchell Limited. (r)
About this work
view without frame
Whicker, Gwendoline J. (1900-1966): Camellias, signed, oil on canvas board, 24.2 x 18.5 cms. Presented by Mrs Esme Beecroft.
More information about the frame
Alma-Tadema seems to have designed this frame himself (a task of which he was very capable, having already created numerous frame, furniture and prop designs), possibly influenced by earlier Pre-Raphaelite patterns which played upon geometrical contrasts and correspondences. He probably used it from the late 1870s to the early1880s, with the step at the back extended further up the chamfer and highlighted with a painted band of black triangles. He also used a wide gold mount or cuff inside the frame to increase its width, and intensify its focusing properties.
The frame was later adopted by artists of the Newlyn School, such as Stanhope Forbes and Tuke. They used it without any painted decoration, in its plain gilded form, and without the wide mount. This transformed it from the Thomas Hope class of chunky Neoclassicising which characterised Alma-Tadema?s furniture and frames, to a modern geometric profile: simple, bold and complementary to large landscapes.
Its use here plays on the link between the early twentieth-century Newlyn painters, their work in Falmouth, and later Falmouth artists such as the Whickers. It works very well as a cabinet picture frame for Camellias, which has such a close focus and abbreviated background that it requires the boost of a bolection moulding to separate it from the wall and push it forward to the spectator.