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Antique Frames
Long overlooked and undervalued, these Cinderellas of the decorative arts have come into their own
The gilt and polychrome outer frame is 18th-century Spanish featuring marbleized panels and pierced shell corners with trailing foliage. The carved and gilt oak leaf-style inner frame is 17th-century French.
This comparison demonstrates that original is important but not always good. For Parke Custis Dougherty's Winter Morning, Quai Voltaire (1909, oil on canvas), a late 19th- to early 20th-century French rococo-revival gilt composition frame in the Louis XV style (above) replaced the original early 20th-century American Impressionist carved and gilt baguette-style frame (below). An important part of the painting's story, the original frame will be retained with the reframed work.
by Julie Cole
Photos by Lisa Adams

Frames have always played a supporting role in the cast of star-studded artworks, but they've recently found themselves in the spotlight. Some of today's most appreciated antique frames could be found in the trash heap only a few decades ago. But in this rags-to-riches tale, a handful of dealers, curators, and collectors came to their senses sometime in the 1980s and realized the value of displaying works in frames that were their equals, their contemporaries, or even perhaps their influences.

Mark Methner, director of McColl Fine Art in Charlotte, is one of the players who feel passionately about preserving and appreciating period frames. "There's a real desire today to frame much more academically," he says. Methner selects antique frames for the gallery's inventory of paintings from a variety of sources, including auctions, dealers, and the gallery's own inventory of frames. It's a little like finding the maiden that fits the slipper. This scholarly matchmaker has an artist's eye for aesthetics and an art historian's eye for context, carefully juggling considerations of period, aesthetics, and various treatments for differing styles.

Methner framed two still lifes by Danish artist Emil Carlsen, who was influenced by renowned still life artist Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, with two very different approaches. For the first, a very Chardinesque work, he chose a muted and rusticated antique French frame from the late 17th century, as a work by Chardin might be framed, referring to both the period and aesthetic of influence.

For the second, he chose a bold, Dutch-style, ebonized frame from the 19th century, a dramatic treatment that illuminates the work, which appeared washed out by its previous presentation in a gilt frame. "I want people to be able to see paintings in their best possible light," he says. "You discount the potential of a painting when it's in an inappropriate frame."

Works of art often get reframed when they change hands, sporting the new collector's taste. But disregarding the context of the work disconnects it from its time. "It's like wearing the right dress with the wrong shoes," says David Park Curry, curator of American arts at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In 2001, the museum was engaged in a major reframing project, spending a quarter of a million dollars to reframe its collection of American paintings. "Seeing a work of art as it's intended to be seen -- it's had a huge impact on the collection. Now 35 paintings are singing a song," Curry says.

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