Carved and gilded picture frame

A picture frame carved across the full profile and partially covered in genuine 23-karat yellow gold leaf — the most intense traditional yellow gold tone, warm and luminous against the deep patinated frieze at the centre of the moulding. Built to the proportions of sixteenth-century Italian Cassetta frames and adapted to contemporary picture formats. Every frame is made to order, to the exact dimensions of your work, one at a time.

Suited to

This profile is designed for paintings with strong colour and compositional presence — oils with full pigment, classical still life, portraits, historicising landscapes, copies after the Old Masters. A 110 mm-wide moulding asks for space; the frame creates a zone of protection and presence around the work, well-suited to paintings hung over a mantelpiece, in a library, study, or formally styled dining room. It belongs in interiors that take their cue from historical painting traditions: period flats, country houses, residences with hardwood floors and heavy textiles. In contemporary settings it can be deployed as a deliberate counterpoint — a single historicising frame in an otherwise minimal room, registering a considered reference to the older framing tradition.

Specification

• Style: cassetta-type frame, Italian Renaissance lineage
• Finish: gesso ground, 23-karat yellow gold leaf, frieze hand-patinated in dark brown; surface sealed with traditional shellac and wax
• Moulding width: 110 mm
• Moulding depth: 44 mm
• Rabbet: 7 mm wide, 24 mm deep
• Material: solid low-tannin timber, the standard used in museum and art-conservation framing
• Corners: mitred and reinforced with wooden splines, a conservation technique
• Artwork retention: factory-fitted spring clips (brass plates with screws available on request)
• Hanging orientation: portrait or landscape — selected from the variant menu
• Use: oil paintings on stretcher, historicising and museum-grade presentation

The dimensions given refer to the frame moulding; the rabbet — the recess that receives the painting — is correspondingly smaller. You order the frame to the dimensions of your painting, and the frame is made 2–3 mm larger to provide working clearance for insertion.

Construction

The profile is carved by hand into solid timber, prepared in advance with a warm gesso ground applied with a brush. Once dried and smoothed, a layer of red bole is laid down — when the gilding is locally burnished and patinated, the bole shows through as a warm underglowing accent. 23-karat yellow gold leaf is laid using the water gilding technique. Leaves of roughly 80×80 mm are cut to size on the gilder's cushion with a specialised knife, then transferred to the prepared surface.

The profile follows the classical structure of Italian cassetta frames. The outer edge carries a twisted rope torus — carved spirally in the wood, then gilded, with patina deliberately exposed where the bole shows through. A fillet steps inward to a wide, slightly recessed frieze — the field painted in dark brown and hand-patinated to a deep matt tone, set in counterpoint to the lustre of the gilding. At the inner boundary with the artwork a second twisted rope torus runs around the sight edge — narrower, also gilded. The profile is closed by a rabbet of 7 mm, concealed behind the inner edge.

After gilding, the surface is sealed with traditional shellac mixed with wax — a treatment that lends depth to colour and a soft, subtly tactile sheen, only legible in raking light. Modern protective lacquer is not used here; shellac works with the timber and lets the patina continue to develop.

How it differs from mass-produced frames

In factory-produced frames the profile is moulded, not carved, and the "gold" is most often dutch metal or metallic paint — an imitation that dulls and darkens with time, because the material contains no gold and oxidises. Here the gold is genuine 23-karat leaf, applied by hand over bole; shellac instead of lacquer creates a surface that gains with age rather than declining. The profile is carved on each length individually — the pattern repeats, but the rhythm and distribution of patina vary from frame to frame. The difference between genuine gold leaf and dutch metal is worth understanding before you choose; it makes more difference fifty years on than at the moment of purchase.

Functionality

The frame is supplied without glass — as a setting for an oil painting on stretcher. The painting is held in the rabbet from the back. The standard fitting is spring clips — factory-installed, swung to one side for insertion and rotated back into a holding position. They allow you to swap or temporarily remove the canvas without disassembling the frame. Brass plates with screws are available as an alternative — supplied loose with screws included, installed by you, intended for long-term mounting where the framing arrangement is final.

The hanging orientation — portrait or landscape — is selected from the variant menu. Standard fitting is hanging cord; a single brass D-ring is available on request. Every frame in this range can also be made without a rabbet as a floater frame, with the canvas on stretcher set inside the frame at a controlled gap from the moulding — leaving the stretcher edges deliberately exposed.

Complete framing — additional options

Every frame can be completed with a full archival mounting prepared in the workshop: glass, archival backing and matting. All components are available as a custom add-on — quote on request.

Glass — four classes available

Opti White, 4 mm — low-iron glass with a neutral, colourless appearance, no green tint typical of standard float glass. Available up to 90×90 cm — the only option for larger works.

Ultra Vue UV70 (Tru Vue), 2.0 mm — anti-reflective glass with 70% UV protection, low-iron. Available up to 60×80 cm.

Art View — premium-class anti-reflective glass: reflection reduced below 1%, up to 75% UV protection, scratch-resistant coating, low-iron, can be cut and mounted from either side. Meets ISO 18916 (Photographic Activity Test) — safe for archival photography. Premium quality at an accessible price. Available up to 60×80 cm.

Optium Museum Acrylic (Tru Vue) — top-tier museum acrylic: over 99% UV protection, museum-grade reflection reduction, anti-static, lightweight, shatter-resistant. The museum standard for conservation work and archival photography. Available up to 60×80 cm.

Archival backing

Dibond 3 mm aluminium composite panel — two layers of aluminium with an acid-free polymer core. Rigid, chemically neutral, dimensionally stable. An industry standard in archival photographic framing and art conservation.

Mounting and matting

Acid-free foam board — chemically neutral, will not yellow over time, will not react with paper or photographic emulsions. Archival standard.

Full museum framing

Combining anti-reflective UV-filtering glass, acid-free matting, Dibond backing and conservation hinging tapes provides a museum-grade mounting — protecting the work from light damage, acid migration from typical framing materials, and mechanical distortion. This type of framing is used in museums, galleries and private collections.

To order: all of the above components are available as a frame add-on on request. Please get in touch with the dimensions of your work and your preferred glass class — I will prepare an individual quote.

Ordering to measure

1. Measure the width and height of the painting to within 1 mm.
2. Enter the dimensions into the calculator on the product page. The frame will be made 2–3 mm larger than the dimensions you give, to provide working clearance for insertion.
3. Select hanging orientation (portrait or landscape) and the type of artwork retention you prefer.
4. Add to basket.

The online price calculator supports artwork sizes up to 120×80 cm. Larger formats are made to individual order — please get in touch with a description of the work and its dimensions.

The base price is the price per running metre of moulding. Mitred corners cut at 45° take up additional length — more so on wider mouldings, and this one is 110 mm. The calculator factors in full material consumption including corners and any selected add-ons. Our full water gilding technique and conservation-grade construction across our gilded and partially painted picture frames are workshop standards — applied to every frame in this category. The price does not cover glass or archival backing; those options are available on request.

Lead time: 35–50 working days. A carved frame requires a longer cycle than a smooth profile — gesso preparation, hand-carving of the ornament, water gilding, and patination are stages that cannot be accelerated without compromising quality.