FAMAG 2007.6
A nineteenth-century British Arts and Crafts style 'plank' frame with architrave profile; spindle and triple bead; wide frieze; deep canted and fluted bevel to sight edge; finished with oil-gilding on the wood.
About this work
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Tuke, Henry Scott, RA RWS (1858-1929): A Morning Gossip, signed and dated 1885, oil on panel, 27 x 34 cms. Purchased with grants from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and The Art Fund.
More information about the frame
The Arts and Crafts style of frame includes a number of different profiles and ornaments, and is united by a use ? derived from early Pre-Raphaelite frames ? of oil-gilded oak. This finish was a re-introduction by Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti of a technique used on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Netherlandish frames, and dates from around 1861. It became exceedingly popular, since because the gold leaf was applied onto a layer of size brushed directly onto the wood the texture of the wood grain was clearly visible. Not only did this effect marry aesthetically with the texture of brushwork and with textures depicted within paintings, but it also accorded with the teaching of the critic John Ruskin on the need for fidelity to the integrity of materials (i.e. one fabric should not be disguised as another ? such as gilded gessoed wood, which aimed to look like ormolu, or like pure gold).
The profile of the Arts and Crafts frame often tended to be wider and flatter than conventional frames; where it had a deeper profile, this was less Baroque and sculptural than in previous styles, and any ornament would be either much sparser or it would be innovative, not copied from ?academic? styles of frame. The type seen here ? the ?plank? frame, with an exaggeratedly wide, flat profile ? was popular in Scandinavia, and can be found on work by Carl Larsson, Pekka Halonen and P. S. Krøyer, amongst others; it was also in use in France and Belgium (James Ensor) and in America (Thomas Eakins).
The wide margin of the frieze on the present frame, between its minimal borders, allows for an uncluttered expanse on which the eye can rest before being drawn inward by the focal pull of the enlarged mitres. The latter help to emphasise the perspectival depth of the painted scene, whilst the comparatively vast proportions of the frame relative to the picture isolate and focus attention upon it.