Rorewood Veneered Frame

 And also a birds-eye maple frame with traditional Victorian gilded slip.

More Veneered Frames

                                William Dyce,   George Herbert at Benerton,  1861    detail

I've been making at lot of veneered frames and this one is of Bird's Eye Maple.

The frame contains a watergilded slip that was traditional to this sort of victorian frame.
Bird's Eye Maple is the most difficult of all veneers, to reproduce the finish as seen on antique frames. To be technical, the aim is to blind out the wood grain but at the same time, enhance the "quilting" figure and print out the characteristic eyes.
The frame is polished with wax and this contrasts nicely with the dry finish on the gilded slip. 

                                      William Dyce,   Welsh Landscape with Figures   1860   

Here again is a veneered frame using Burr Elm. I like the colour on this one where there is a greenish cast behind the walnut/mahogany tone; and also the relief pattern from the burr veneer.

Silver Gilding

Here are two frames gilded with silver leaf. The gilding here is oil laid using a long drying oil to obtain the brightest finish.

Creating a worn antique finish on oil gilding can be quite tricky and easily spoilt. There are no burnishing effects or leaf overlaps to show but sometimes these in themselves can be a bit of a cliche.

Both frames are heavily toned and polished and then matched up to some very early watercolours.

Making a Hogarth Frame

Here I've made the profiles and added the compo ornament to form the basic Hogarth moulding.
Even though this would have been considered an inexpensive frame in it's day, reproducing it can require a quite disproportionate amount of time.

This shows a small section of the finished frame.

A Gothic Sanded Slip Frame

The title's a bit of a mouthful but this ever popular frame is ideal for early prints and engravings. Although by appearance quite a simple frame, the actual profile is quite complex. To make it, a compo ornament is glued onto a slip moulding, edged with sand and then gessoed over.

This rather mucky looking assembly is then oil gilded over a yellow base and then held inside a black gothic moulding.

These frames require a significant degree of "distressing" and colouring to replicate their current found appearance. The greatest challenge is to tone down the gold without losing the quiet quality of antique gilding.

A Simple Flat Black Moulding

This is a flat moulding that has been gessoed, then laquered black over a red clay base. The gilded sight edge is watergilded with "moon" gold.
A very popular frame.

The Blackberry Pickers

Another gothic style frame. I've popped it over an old victorian print of "The Blackberry Pickers"
and it does look rather good. The frame is obeche wood finished to mimic fruitwood and the gilding is watergilded 23.5ct gold.
I'm not sure if watergilding is contemporary to this style of frame but it looks good anyway.