Made to measure, for one particular painting
Nothing in this category comes in fixed sizes. You give the width and height of the artwork and the frame is built to those numbers: the rabbet is cut 2–3 mm larger than the work, so the canvas seats without being forced, and the moulding covers the painted surface by roughly 4–5 mm on each side. On most models you also set the rabbet depth, which decides whether the frame takes a standard 18–20 mm stretcher or a deep 40 mm one. That is the practical difference between a frame made for a painting and a ready-made size the painting has to fit into.
What you will find here
This is the main category of custom picture frames in the shop, so it gathers every model I make, from plain narrow mouldings to wide, ornamented profiles. Broadly it divides into:
- Hand-painted frames — blacks, whites, browns, greens, greys and navies, in matt, satin or high-gloss finishes, including rubbed-back and patinated surfaces with a worn, vintage character.
- Frames gilded with genuine leaf — 23K yellow gold, 22K moon gold, 12K and 6K white gold, and on particular designs sterling silver or palladium.
- Painted frames with a gilded edge — a black, white or coloured face closed at the sight edge by a narrow line of real gold.
- Floating frames for canvas, including the American box, where a visible gap separates the stretcher from the moulding.
- Round frames with a tondo, and profiles of less usual construction, among them Flemish corners and Dutch-style reverse mouldings.
Moulding widths run from narrow strips little more than a centimetre across to profiles well over 100 mm wide, made for large canvases. If you already know the direction you want, it is quicker to go straight to a subcategory: white picture frames, black picture frames, gold gilded picture frames, or frames that combine paint with gilding.
Which artworks these frames suit
Most models are built as settings for oil and acrylic painting on stretched canvas. They are supplied without glass, usually with spring clips or brass plates holding the work in the rabbet, and the deeper profiles will also take built-up or cradled supports. Many of the same mouldings work equally well for prints, drawings, watercolours and photographs; in that case the frame can be completed in the workshop with glass, acid-free matting and a rigid backing board, quoted individually.
How the frames are made
Each frame is built from raw stock in my workshop in Czarna Białostocka. The moulding is profiled, cut and mitred at 45°, and the corners are joined with timber splines before any finish goes on. The frame is assembled first and decorated afterwards, so paint or leaf runs across a closed corner instead of meeting at the joint. Painted models are built up in successive coats, rubbed back or patinated by hand where the design calls for it, and sealed with shellac and wax.
On gilded models the sequence is the traditional one: a chalk gesso ground sanded smooth, a coloured bole over it, and genuine leaf laid by water gilding, which uses no adhesive at all — the leaf bonds to the damp bole. Chosen areas are then burnished with an agate stone to a mirror polish while the rest keeps the matt texture of the leaf. The bole shows through and shifts the tone: red warms the gold, grey cools it, plum sits between the two. Not every frame in this category is gilded, and where the karat and the bole matter they are stated on the individual product page.
What you can choose when ordering
- colour or type of finish, and on gilded models the shade of leaf and the colour of the bole beneath it;
- rabbet depth, matched to the thickness of your stretcher;
- how the work is held — spring clips fitted in the workshop, or brass plates with screws for a permanent mounting;
- hanging orientation, portrait or landscape, with cord as standard and a single D-ring on request;
- a floater version without a rabbet, available on selected models;
- glass, acid-free matting and a backing board as an add-on, priced on enquiry.
On selected models the frame can be painted in any colour from the NCS range. If you are framing several works at once, they can all be finished the same way so the hang reads as one set. Anything beyond the menu — a different moulding, another colour, a format the calculator will not take — is arranged individually.
How to order
Measure the painting itself, not the wall space you expect it to fill, and enter the width and height to 0.1 cm on the product page. Choose the options you want and the price is worked out for you: the base figure is the rate per running metre of moulding, and mitred corners consume more length than the bare perimeter suggests, which the calculator allows for. Lead time is stated on each product.
If you are unsure which profile suits a particular painting, or you need a size the calculator will not accept, write or call with the dimensions and a photograph of the work. I will tell you what I would use and prepare a quote.
