Modern flat picture frame in 6-karat white gold leaf

A modern picture frame comes down to proportion. The face here is only 20 mm wide, which is enough to close a composition with a clean metallic line and not enough to compete with it. I water-gild that face by hand in 6-karat white gold leaf laid over red bole and burnish it with an agate stone, which gives the coolest, most chrome-like reflection of any leaf I work with, and I paint the sides black. Every frame is made to measure for one particular painting, photograph or print.

Moulding profile

At the artwork the face opens as a single flat plane, 20 mm wide, with no step, hollow or bead anywhere across it. The gilding runs the full width of that plane, so the light reads along it as one continuous band rather than a sequence of separate highlights, and the plane stays level all the way out. At the outer edge the face turns into the flank, which stands 30 mm from the face to the back plane and is painted black. That single change of plane, gold turning to black, is the whole of the ornament.

Specification

• style: modern, minimalist
• profile: flat, plain, square section
• moulding width: 20 mm
• moulding thickness (from face to back plane): 30 mm
• rabbet: 7 mm wide, 25 mm deep
• timber: solid wood with low tannin content, used in museum conservation and fine-art framing
• corner joinery: mitred at 45°, reinforced with wooden splines fitted before gessoing
• face finish: water gilding in 6-karat white gold leaf over red bole, burnished with an agate stone, sealed with traditional shellac and wax
• side finish: hand-painted black, satin sheen, finished with wax
• glass, backing and matting: available as add-ons, not part of the order menu
• mounting and hanging: spring clips and hanging cord fitted as standard
• lead time: 20–30 working days

The size you enter is the size of the artwork, not of the finished frame. I build the frame 2–3 mm larger than the figures you give, a technical clearance that lets the work sit freely in the rabbet, so the moulding covers roughly 4–5 mm along each edge of the picture. The outside dimension of the finished frame is larger than the artwork by about twice the width of the moulding.

Which artworks and which interiors it suits

This profile sits best with contemporary painting: abstraction, geometric composition, monochrome work, a restrained landscape. It does the same job for fine-art photography in colour or in black and white, for prints, and for typographic and collectors' editions. With a 25 mm rabbet it takes an oil or acrylic painting on a standard stretcher without glass.

In rooms of pale wood, raw concrete or white plaster the white gold reads as a cool accent that lifts the wall without introducing another colour. In a classical setting of honey-toned oak, brass and deep green it works the other way round, as a fresh contrasting note. If you are weighing a narrow modern moulding against a wider classical one, I go through the trade-offs in my guide to modern picture frames, and the rest of the range where a gilded face meets a painted side sits under picture frames gilded and partially painted.

How I make it

The lengths are mitred at 45° and each corner is reinforced with a wooden spline while the moulding is still raw. Joining before any finish goes on is what keeps the corners closed as the timber moves with the seasons: the joint is mechanical, not a glued mitre held together by whatever is wrapped over it.

Then the ground. Several coats of chalk-and-glue gesso, sanded back between coats, followed by red bole, a fine clay that stays visible through the metal and warms it from underneath. Sheets of 6-karat white gold leaf, roughly 80 by 80 mm, are cut down to the width of the face on a gilder's cushion with a knife, then laid one beside the next with an overlap of about a millimetre, which is what makes a single layer of gold. Once the ground is dry I burnish the face with an agate stone, and that is the step that produces the near-mirror surface. The sides are painted black by hand and finished with wax, which gives the satin sheen; the gilded face is sealed in the traditional way, with shellac and wax. I set out the technique in more detail on my water gilding page.

How it differs from a mass-produced frame

Industrial mouldings are wrapped in a metal-look foil or sprayed with metallic paint. The result is even, and it is also flat: under raking light you see the seam of the foil at the corner and a reflection that sits on the surface rather than in it.

Water-gilded leaf behaves differently because there is something underneath it. The red bole shows faintly through the gold and gives the surface a depth that paint cannot imitate, and leaf laid and burnished by hand reflects with a slight irregularity that is exactly what separates a made frame from a wrapped one when you stand in front of it. The substrate is solid wood with low tannin content, the material used in museum conservation and fine-art framing, and the corners are splined rather than relying on adhesive alone. A frame built this way is still doing its job decades later.

Function and fit

The frame is supplied without glass, as a mount for a canvas on a stretcher or another rigid support. The rabbet is 7 mm wide and 25 mm deep, which takes a standard stretcher; for the deeper bars common in contemporary painting I cut the rabbet deeper to order.

The same moulding can also be made without a rabbet, as a floating frame: the canvas sits inside the moulding with a gap around it and the edges of the stretcher left open. I write about when that is the better choice in my guide to floating frames for canvas art.

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

The artwork is held in the rabbet by spring clips, fitted to the back of the frame in the workshop. They rotate aside, so one work can come out and another go in without tools. Brass plates with screws are available on request instead: they are supplied loose with the screws, you fit them yourself once the work is in, and the fixing is permanent. This is not a menu choice, so add a note to the order if you want the brass plates.

Hanging orientation, portrait or landscape, is selected from the order menu, and the frame is prepared for that orientation only. Hanging cord is fitted as standard. A single D-ring hanger is available on request.

Made to measure

The price shown is the price per running metre of moulding. The perimeter of the picture is not the whole length a frame needs: the 45° mitres take additional length at each corner, and the wider the moulding, the more they take. The calculator works out the full consumption including corners, along with any add-ons you select.

Measure the artwork itself, width and height, to the nearest millimetre, and type those figures in. The calculator handles artworks up to 120 × 80 cm; anything larger is made to individual order, so send me the dimensions and I will price it.

On request I can change the colour of the bole under the gilding (red, black, yellow, green, blue or grey, each giving a different final tone), the metal leaf (6-karat white gold, 12-karat white gold, 22-karat moon gold, 23-karat yellow gold, palladium or fine silver), the colour of the sides, and the side finish, satin with wax or high gloss with lacquer.

Lead time is 20–30 working days.