Blue and gold picture frame for oil paintings

A blue and gold picture frame for oil paintings, hand painted and water gilded in my workshop and made to the dimensions of your canvas. The face is 75 mm across and largely hollowed, so it reads as a broad band of colour around the painting rather than as a gilded surround; the only metal on it is a narrow line of 22-karat moon gold leaf along the edge of the work. It belongs to my range of gilded and partially painted picture frames.

Moulding profile

At the edge of the painting the face begins with a small flat frieze. A small rising hollow runs behind it and passes without a step into a large hollow taking up most of the 75 mm width. From the bottom of that hollow the moulding rises towards the outer edge, and the highest point of the profile is the quarter-round that closes the face. The lateral flank is cut by a further recess breaking its straight line.

Only the small flat frieze beside the painting is gilded: a narrow line of gold marks the edge of the work, and the rest of the profile stays blue.

Specification

• Style: painted frame with a gilded line, wide hollowed face
• Finish: hand painted blue, hand-patinated, sealed with shellac and wax, satin sheen
• Gilding: 22-karat moon gold leaf, water gilded on black bole, on the frieze at the artwork edge
• Moulding width: 75 mm
• Moulding thickness (face to back): 41 mm with the 9 mm rebate, 52 mm with the 20 mm rebate
• Rebate: 7 mm wide, 9 mm or 20 mm deep, selected from the order menu
• Timber: low-tannin timber used in museum work and art conservation
• Corner joining: mitred at 45 degrees, reinforced with wooden splines
• Glass, backing and mounts: available to order
• Mounting: spring clips, portrait or landscape orientation
• Suitable for: oil and acrylic paintings on stretched canvas, painting panels

The frame is made to the dimensions of the artwork. Enter the width and height of your painting in the calculator on this page; I build the frame 2–3 mm larger than the figures you give, so the work seats cleanly, and the moulding then covers the edge of the painting by about 4–5 mm.

Which paintings and interiors it suits

A 75 mm face carries a mid-size or large canvas comfortably, and the deep hollow gives the painting a visual run-up rather than dropping straight from wall to picture edge. It suits oil and acrylic paintings where blue already sits in the palette, such as seascapes and winter landscapes, and works equally well against warm work, where the blue answers ochre and terracotta.

Because the gold is limited to one line, the frame does not compete with the work for attention, the usual risk with a fully gilded moulding on a contemporary painting. If you are weighing it against a plain gallery frame or a box frame, my guide to types of picture frames for canvas paintings compares how each behaves around a stretched canvas.

How I make and finish it

The moulding is milled from low-tannin timber of the kind used in museum work and art conservation, which stays dimensionally calm and does not release acids into the work. I cut the mitres at 45 degrees and join the corners with wooden splines while the frame is still bare. That order is why the corners stay closed: every later layer, gesso included, runs across the joint.

The frame is gessoed, and the flat frieze receives several coats of black bole. The gilding is done by the water gilding method: leaf is laid onto the wetted bole one piece at a time with an overlap of roughly a millimetre, which is a single layer of gold. Moon gold at 22 karat is paler and cooler than 23-karat yellow gold, and over black bole it reads as a fine, slightly silvered line. The leaf arrives in sheets of about 80 by 80 mm and is cut down on the gilder’s cushion for a frieze this narrow.

The blue is hand painted, then hand-patinated so the colour is not flat across a face this wide. The whole frame is then sealed with shellac and wax, leaving a satin sheen.

How it differs from a mass-produced frame

A factory frame of this width is usually a wrapped or sprayed profile cut to length, corners closed with staples and touched in afterwards, gold line printed as foil. Here the colour sits on a gesso ground, the gold is genuine leaf on bole, and the corners were joined before any finish existed.

Function

The rebate is 7 mm wide, with a depth of 9 or 20 mm chosen from the order menu: 9 mm takes a painting panel or a shallow stretcher, 20 mm takes a standard stretched canvas with room for a backing board behind it. How much a frame holds depends on what fits inside the rebate, not on how far the moulding projects, so check that figure against your stretcher rather than the 41 or 52 mm thickness. The frame is supplied without glass, as a setting for a painting.

The same section can be made without a rebate, as a floating frame, with the canvas set inside and a visible gap around it. Tell me when you order.

Complete framing – additional options

Every frame I make can be completed with full archival and museum-quality framing: anti-reflective UV-filtering glass (four classes to choose from), acid-free museum mat board, spacers wrapped in acid-free paper and a Dibond backing. This kind of mounting protects the work from light, acids and distortion. I set out the full glass and material specification on a separate page: archival and museum framing for paintings and photographs. All components are available at extra cost, as an individual quote on request.

Mounting and hanging

Spring clips are fitted as standard, installed in the workshop and rotated aside to seat or swap the painting without dismantling the frame. Brass plates with screws are available on request, supplied loose with the screws included, for you to fit once the work is in place; this is the permanent retention used in exhibition mounting.

Hanging orientation, portrait or landscape, is selected from the order menu, and the frame is fitted only in the chosen orientation. Picture wire is standard; a single D-ring hanger is available on request.

Ordering to measure

Measure the width and height of your painting to within a millimetre, enter those dimensions in the calculator, choose the rebate depth and the hanging orientation, and add the frame to your basket. The calculator accepts artwork up to a perimeter of 180 cm, the limit set for a moulding of this width; larger formats I make to individual order, so please write to me first. My page on framing oil paintings goes through the choices in more detail.

The base price shown is the price per running metre of moulding. The perimeter of the painting is not the whole length the frame needs: corners cut at 45 degrees consume additional length, and the wider the moulding the more each corner takes. The calculator accounts for the full moulding consumption including corners, along with any options selected. Lead time is 20–30 working days.