FAMAG 2008.18
A late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century antique British artist?s frame in oak; architrave profile, with canted reeded sight and top rails; decorated with astragal-&-bead moulding and stylised leaf back edge; finished with original oil gilding; supplied by Paul Mitchell Limited.
About this work
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Brown, Sir John Arnesby RA (1866-1955): Study for 'The Labourers', 1898, signed, oil on canvas, 30.5 x 30.5 cms. Purchased with funding from The Tony Banks Memorial Trust.
More information about the frame
This frame derives from earlier nineteenth-century reeded patterns - for example, those by Ford Madox Brown and D.G. Rossetti - and from later versions by Albert Moore and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Moore and Whistler worked together for some years, and both experimented with reeded designs. As they diverged in their work, Moore decorated his frames with rows of Classical ornament, whilst Whistler developed patterns with bands of ever smaller and more refined reeds, as here.
The gilt oak frieze also derives from the practice reintroduced by Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti; the irregular natural texture of the wood grain complements the visible tooth of the canvas, and the painterly brushwork.