FAMAG 2002.9.1
An Italian late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century Neoclassical architrave frame with torus at top edge, frieze and small moulding at sight; finished with matt and burnished water-gilding; supplied by Paul Mitchell (r). Frame generously sponsored by Mrs Derek Jackson-Feilden in memory of her husband Derek with additional support from the Canterbury Auction Galleries.
About this work
view without frame
Newton, Kenneth (1933-1984): Railings in the snow - rear of Quarry Street, Guildford, 1961/2, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 122 cms. The Richard Harris Gift.
More information about the frame
The original frame for this painting when shown at the Royal Academy is now lost, but is believed to have been a painted wood frame. The picture was sold by Christie's unframed after the original purchaser, Sir Gerald Kelly, died.
This frame was chosen to complement the frieze-like composition of the painting, with its strong verticals and horizontal tiers. The simple but bold Neoclassical design, the wide panels of its frieze bounded by the enlarged top moulding, has been used very successfully to frame Cubist paintings, where similar compositional elements occur. The original model would have been employed to offset the geometric lines of Neoclassical interiors, with their refined arabesque decoration and repeated runs of ornament.
The classical lines of the frame also evoke the idea of a window, through which the spectator?s eye is drawn; this effect enhances the realistic space of the view, with its unusually emphatic foreground and the distant houses beyond.