Framing
We will happily quote you on shipping a fully framed work anywhere in
Australia or around the world. We now use Pak & Send to arrange secure packing and freight destinations almost anywhere. Please email us for a price on any work. Please see the bottom of this page for 'click to see' close-up detail of the frames chosen for each work.
High quality framing is essential for the best possible presentation of any work of art, and for its preservation. We use only conservation-standard framing with fully archival, acid-free materials. Our chosen framers are Manson’s Framers – a family business for more than 40 years - and one of the few framing companies that has retained all the old skills, including water and oil gilding and which also designs and manufactures many of its own mouldings including the ones we use. It is very hard to find framing companies with these skills today.
Most of the frames we use from Manson's are water-gilded with 23 carat gold. Water gilding is a highly skilled and specialised art that goes back to the days of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt when it was used to disguise the fact that objects such as furniture were not solid gold, even though they looked as if they were.
It has been used as a decorative finish on furniture, picture frames, architectural features, illuminated books and glass objects ever since. Through Victorian times gilding helped dinner parties stay at the table longer. Light bounced around their galleries and dining rooms from frames to furniture to cornices, catching the candle light hundreds of ways and bouncing it back. The taste and demand for gilding is constantly changing but the way a well gilt object plays with light will always be the same - breath taking!
The area to be gilded is wetted fully with water size made from gelatine dissolved in hot water. The leaf can’t be handled directly because it sticks to the skin and tears easily. It is picked up with a gilder’s tip, a kind of flat brush of very soft squirrel hair, and placed onto the wet frame. As soon as part of the leaf touches the size, the whole leaf is sucked onto the frame.
The gild is initially satin in appearance but becomes bright as it dries. It can then be lightly rubbed with cotton wool to smooth it down and any holes or damaged areas are patched with a second gild. It can also be ‘distressed’, which creates an antique patina and is used on several of our frames. Distressing, either by scratching or rubbing, can be used for some soft-edged designs or for cross-hatching, or simply to cut back on the visual strength of a solid reflective area by softening it.
The standard gilding leaf is 23 carat gold. It comes in books of 25 leaves between pages of thin, rouged paper. The leaf is 80-85mm square and approximately 0.1µm thick. A million sheets would be about 100mm (4 inches) thick. It can vary slightly from one manufacturer to another in colour, thickness and surface texture and the way that it is applied can also vary - for example, while we use the same moulding for some works, the gilding differs for each painting.
Click here or click here for details of the water-gilded frame used for Ray Crooke, Barry Humphries and Wendy Sharpe. We use the same moulding but slightly different gilding for each work
Click here for a detail of the water-gilded frame used for Lawrence Daws and Margaret Olley. We use the same moulding but quite different gilding for each work.
Click here for a detail of the gilded frame used for Cressida Campbell.
Click here for a detail of the gilded frame used for William Robinson.
(These frames were selected by Philip Bacon , Director, Philip Bacon Galleries, as best suited to these works)
Click here for a detail of the frame used for Ralph Wilson, which was also designed by him to best show the work. |
