Turquoise and gold picture frame for oil paintings

Strong colour beside gold works on a painting only if the colour is kept off the canvas edge. That is what this moulding does: 56 mm wide, the turquoise held in a wide flat frieze with two narrow gilded steps closing it in, so what meets the artwork is a thin line of metal, not a band of colour competing with the palette. The turquoise is painted by hand and the gold is real leaf, water gilded. It sits with my other gilded and partially painted picture frames.

The moulding profile

At the artwork the profile opens with a lip rising into the first step, gilded on its flat top. Past it the face drops into a wide flat frieze that takes most of the width, runs level from one step to the other and carries all of the colour. A matching second step, gilded on its flat top in the same way, closes the face, and the outer side is flat. The frieze sits lower than both steps, so the face is slightly recessed and the gold reads as two parallel lines of metal.

Specification

• Style: panelled profile, wide flat frieze between two steps gilded on their tops
• Face finish: hand-painted turquoise, satin sheen, visible brushwork
• Gilding: 22-karat moon gold leaf over red bole, burnished with an agate stone; 23-karat yellow or 12-karat white gold on request
• Moulding width: 56 mm
• Moulding thickness (face to back): 32 mm
• Rebate: 7 mm wide, 10 or 20 mm deep, chosen in the order menu
• Material: seasoned low-tannin timber, of the kind used in art conservation
• Corners: mitred at 45°, reinforced with wooden splines
• Glass, backing and matting: additional options, priced individually
• Mounting and hanging: spring clips and picture wire as standard
• Suits: oils and acrylics on canvas, painting panels, prints and photographs on rigid supports
• Lead time: 20–30 working days

I make the frame to the size of one particular artwork. You enter the dimensions of the work itself in the calculator; I build the frame 2 to 3 mm larger for the clearance needed to seat it, and the moulding covers its edge by roughly 4 to 5 mm.

Which artworks and interiors it suits

Turquoise is cool and saturated, so it works best against a palette that can answer it. Oil painting in a warm, earthy range takes it well: landscape, still life, architecture, and any work where blue is already present, such as a marine subject or a Mediterranean view. It also suits contemporary acrylic painting and prints with a strong graphic line, though not work in a cold, silvery key. On presenting a canvas, see my page on framing oil paintings.

At 56 mm the moulding is a middle width, enough to hold its own on the wall without overwhelming a canvas of around 40 by 50 cm. Turquoise with gold sits well beside warm timber, brass and an off-white wall.

How I make it

The order of work does not change. I cut the lengths at 45°, join the corners and reinforce them with wooden splines before any finishing at all. Onto the assembled frame I lay gesso, coat by coat, and sand it smooth. The areas that take metal are covered with bole, and the gilding is done with 22-karat moon gold leaf laid onto water, leaf beside leaf with a slight overlap, then burnished with an agate stone.

The turquoise frieze is painted by hand in several coats and I do not flatten the brush marks: they are part of the surface, not a fault. Shellac and wax close the work, giving the satin sheen and protecting colour and gilding alike.

Personalisation

The standard version is turquoise with 22-karat moon gold over red bole, as photographed. The gold can be changed: 23-karat yellow gives the strongest classical brightness, 12-karat white gold a pale, silvery tone. Other bole colours are available, among them brown, grey, plum and Victorian grey. Bole is not cosmetic: it shows through after patination and shifts the temperature of the metal, red warming it, grey quietening it. The technique is set out on my page about water gilding.

How it differs from mass production

The shape of the moulding is milled by machine, as in every workshop; the difference starts afterwards. A ready-made frame off a shop shelf has its gold applied as foil or metallic lacquer, its colour sprayed on, its corners glued and stapled. Here the gold is real leaf laid onto water over gesso and bole, the colour goes on with a brush, the corners are joined in wood before priming, and each frame is made to one artwork rather than a stock format.

Functionality

The frame is supplied without glass, prepared for a canvas on a stretcher. Rebate depth is chosen in the order menu: 10 mm for thin supports and panels, 20 mm for a standard stretcher. That figure, not the 32 mm thickness of the moulding, decides how deep a work the frame will take.

The same moulding can be made without a rebate, as a floating frame, the painting standing on spacers with a visible gap around the canvas. I set out the difference in my guide to the floating picture 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

The artwork is held in the rebate 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. Picture wire 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 painting is not the whole length a frame needs: the mitres cut at 45° take additional length at each corner, and the wider the moulding, the more they take. The calculator works out the full consumption including corners, with any extras you select.

Give the dimensions of the artwork to the nearest millimetre, for example 30.3 by 40.7 cm. 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 and I will price it. Lead time is 20–30 working days.