Gold Leaf Picture Frame for Oil Paintings – 23-Karat Water Gilding

This is a gold leaf frame for paintings in the strict sense of the phrase: genuine 23-karat leaf laid on wet size over red bole, then burnished with an agate stone until the gold holds a mirror brightness. The whole face is one convex arch, so nothing competes with the metal. I make it for oil and acrylic paintings on canvas, and for anyone who wants gilding done the traditional way rather than a gold-effect finish.

The moulding profile

The moulding opens with a quarter-round hollow that runs into a narrow frieze. From the frieze rises a convex ridge covering the whole width of the face: it climbs to the highest point of the profile, then falls away towards the outside. At its base, close to the outer wall, a step closes the profile in front of the vertical outer edge.

The moulding is 32 mm wide and 31 mm thick from face to back, so the cross-section is close to square and the frame carries real weight for its face width. The surface is milled smooth and left plain: the relief comes from the curve itself, which is why the burnished gold reads as one continuous band of light.

Specification

• Style: gilded gallery frame, plain convex profile
• Finish: 23-karat gold leaf, water-gilded over red bole, agate-burnished, hand-patinated, sealed with shellac and wax
• Moulding width: 32 mm
• Moulding thickness (face to back): 31 mm
• Rebate: 7 mm wide, 17 mm deep (20 mm to order); takes a stretcher up to 15 mm thick
• Timber: low-tannin timber used in museum work and conservation
• Corners: mitred at 45° and reinforced with wooden splines
• Glass, backing and matting: add-on, priced individually
• Mounting and hanging: sprung retaining clips, picture wire, portrait or landscape chosen at checkout
• Floating version: available, made without a rebate
• Suitable for: oil and acrylic paintings on canvas; works on paper with glass and a mat
• Lead time: 20–30 working days

Dimensions are taken from the artwork, not from the outer edge of the frame. Enter the size of your painting in the calculator and I build the frame 2–3 mm larger, the technical clearance needed to fit the work in, with the moulding overlapping the painting by roughly 4–5 mm around the opening.

Suitable artworks and interiors

The 17 mm rebate takes a stretcher up to 15 mm thick, which covers most gallery-stretched canvases, so this is first of all a frame for oil and acrylic paintings: portraits, landscapes, still lifes and figure studies. For deeper stretchers I mill a 20 mm rebate to order, and the same profile suits parchments, drawings and photographs once they are set behind a mat or on spacers.

Warm, saturated palettes gain most from it: burnished 23-karat gold picks up the reds and browns of an oil painting and returns them as light. The plain convex face is easy to place: classical in a period room, a clean gallery frame against white walls. If you are weighing up options for a particular canvas, I go through them on my page about framing oil paintings.

Workmanship and finish

I cut and join the moulding first, mitring the corners at 45° and reinforcing them with wooden splines, so the frame is one rigid unit before any finishing starts. Then come the grounds: several coats of gesso, sanded back, followed by red bole. The gilding is carried out with 23-karat gold leaf laid on wet size, leaf beside leaf with an overlap of about a millimetre, which gives one continuous layer of gold rather than a patchwork. The leaf arrives in sheets roughly 80 mm square, cut down with a knife on the gilder's cushion.

Once the gold has dried I burnish it with an agate stone, which is what produces the mirror sheen, patinate by hand to control how bright the surface reads, and seal it with shellac and wax. The technique is set out on my water gilding page, and the other models sit in the gold gilded picture frames category.

What sets it apart from mass production

The gold here is genuine leaf on timber, not a printed film, a foil or a gold-effect paint, and the brightness comes from agate burnishing rather than a spray gun. The moulding is timber rather than MDF or aluminium, and the corners are held by wooden splines rather than staples. Every stage from gesso to patina happens by hand, and the frame is cut to your painting instead of your painting being fitted to a stock size.

Functionality

For a painting on a stretcher no glass is needed: the canvas goes into the rebate from the back, and the 17 mm depth leaves room for a 15 mm stretcher together with the retaining hardware. Works on paper, watercolours and photographs can be completed with glass, backing and a mat. This profile can also be built as a floating frame, without a rebate, so the canvas appears to hover inside it; that construction is explained in my guide to the floating picture frame for canvas art.

Frequently asked questions

How thick a stretcher does the 17 mm rebate hold?

Up to 15 mm; the remaining depth is taken by the retaining clips. For thicker stretchers I mill a 20 mm rebate to order.

Is the 23-karat gold real?

Yes. It is genuine gold leaf laid over red bole and burnished with an agate stone, not imitation foil or paint. Real gold does not tarnish, so a water-gilded surface keeps its colour for generations.

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 frame is supplied without glass as standard. To hold the painting I fit sprung retaining clips, which pivot to the side so the canvas can be taken out and replaced quickly without tools. On request I supply brass plates with screws instead, provided loose for permanent fixing by the customer. The hanging orientation, portrait or landscape, is chosen from the ordering menu; picture wire is fitted as standard and a single D-ring hanger is available on request.

Made-to-measure ordering

Measure your painting and enter its dimensions in the calculator, to the nearest 0.1 cm. The base price shown is the price per linear metre of moulding. The perimeter of the painting is not the full length of moulding a frame needs, because the 45° mitres consume additional length, the more so as the moulding gets wider; the calculator accounts for the full consumption with corners plus any add-ons you select. 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. The lead time is 20–30 working days.