Gilded Picture Frame for Paintings with a Choice of Gold Leaf

A gilded frame for paintings in a narrow scale: the face is 25 mm across, gold leaf runs over all of it, and the side is painted black by hand. What sets it apart from the other frames I make gilded on the face and painted on the sides is that two decisions stay with you: the leaf sets the temperature of the metal, the bole underneath decides what shows through it.

The moulding profile

At the artwork side the face opens with a concave hollow rising gently outwards. It runs into a narrow flat band about 6 mm across, and beyond that the line lifts again in an ogee, a sweep with the section of an S, closing at a flat crown, the highest point of the face and the part that gathers most light. Gold leaf covers all of it, hollow to crown.

The side of the moulding is a flat wall square to the face, carried across the full 45 mm from face to back. I paint it by hand in one of two finishes: smooth black with a satin sheen, or black with brush texture left visible and brown reading through. The profile is machine milled; everything after that is hand work.

Specification

• Style: classic narrow profile, ogee closing in a flat crown
• Face finish: water gilding with real gold leaf; 23-karat yellow, 22-karat moon, 12-karat white or 6-karat white
• Bole beneath the gold: nine colours in the order menu
• Side finish: smooth black with a satin sheen, or black with brush texture and brown reading through
• Moulding width: 25 mm
• Moulding thickness, face to back: 45 - 55 mm
• Rebate: 7 mm wide, cut to the canvas thickness
• Canvas thickness: 20 mm or 30 mm
• Material: low-tannin wood used in conservation work
• Corner joinery: mitred at 45 degrees, reinforced with wooden splines
• Glass, backing and matting: additional options, priced on request
• Mounting and hanging: spring clips, picture wire, either orientation
• Suits: oil and acrylic on canvas and panel, prints, photographs, paper

Enter the width and height of the artwork, not of the frame. I make the frame 2 to 3 mm larger so the work seats without strain, and the moulding overlaps the edge of the artwork by roughly 4 to 5 mm.

Choosing the leaf and the bole

Yellow gold at 23-karat gives the full classic glow and settles beside painting with an earth palette. Moon gold at 22-karat is paler and cooler, faintly silvery, and holds its own next to whites, greys and cold greens. White gold at 12-karat and 6-karat is colder again; at 6-karat the reflection is close to chrome.

The bole is the coloured ground under the leaf. It begins to work once the surface has been burnished with an agate stone and patinated, when its colour reads through the metal at the edges and in the hollow: red lifts the warmth, black gives a hard contrast under cool white gold, grey cools moon gold furthest. I agree the degree of patination when you order, and the face can be left bright.

What it suits

A narrow gilded face works best where the frame is meant to close the painting rather than compete with it: small and medium oil and acrylic work on canvas and panel, studies, still lifes and portraits, and equally prints, watercolours and photography. Against a pale wall it reads as a thin line of gold; against a dark one the black outline comes forward.

How it is made and finished

The order of work is traditional. The lengths are cut, mitred at 45 degrees and reinforced with wooden splines, and joining comes before finishing, so the ground and the gold run through the corner unbroken. Coats of gesso follow, smoothed back, then the bole in your colour.

The gilding is water gilding, laid leaf beside leaf with an overlap of about a millimetre, a single layer. The leaves measure roughly 80 by 80 mm, so for a face this narrow I cut them down with a knife on the gilder's cushion. Once the gold has set I burnish it with an agate stone and patinate it by hand where the bole is meant to show. The side is painted and waxed last.

How it differs from mass production

Industrially gilded moulding usually carries no gold at all, only transfer foil or a copper and zinc alloy that darkens with time; I have set out how real gold leaf differs from imitation leaf separately. Here the face carries real gold leaf over gesso and bole, so the surface has a depth that cannot be printed, and once burnished it catches light in points, not flatly.

The second difference is at the corner. In series production the moulding is finished by the metre and cut afterwards, leaving a visible break at the mitre. Here the frame is assembled first, then grounded and gilded, and cut to the size of one particular work.

Functionality

The frame is supplied without glass or backing, in the classic form that laps over the edge of the painting. You select the canvas thickness in the order menu, 20 mm or 30 mm, and I cut the inside to it. For work on paper it takes glass, a mount and a backing, specified individually.

If you want the painting set away from the moulding, with a gap around the canvas, I run the same section separately as a floating frame 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

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

The base price shown is the price per running metre of moulding. The perimeter of the painting is not the whole length a frame needs: corners cut at 45 degrees take additional length, the more so the wider the moulding. The calculator accounts for the full consumption including the corners, together with any options selected, and prices the frame alone, without glass.

For this moulding width the calculator handles artworks up to 180 cm around the perimeter; anything larger is made to individual order, so send me the dimensions, the canvas thickness and the leaf and bole you want. The lead time is 20 to 30 working days.