70 
House & Garden 
gSTASl-’SHCO 1895 
DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE 
by James Northcote 
Born at Plymouth, England 1746, died 1831 
in ike colleciion of 
567 FIFTH AVENUE 
fAQtO^^ork 
10 RUE Caumartin 
iOaris 
47 Old Bond St. 
^^7idon 
Old and Modern Masters 
American Paintincs.Etchincs 
1 Meziotints.Sdobtinc Prints, 
OLD ENGLISH FURNITURE 
INTERIOR DECORATIONS 
39 East Fifty-Seventh Street 
LONDON NEW YORK 
VAN WINSUM & WEYMER 
A view in 
one of our 
galleries 
Early 14th Century Ital¬ 
ian Madonna in Gothic 
gilt frame 
The Gothic frame of 
this painting is at¬ 
tached to the picture 
Period Styles in Picture Frames 
{Continued from page 68) 
Sections of Louis 
Seize frame mold¬ 
ings 
especially notable instance occurs in 
the Hall of Saint Louis, at Fontaine¬ 
bleau, where the chimney-piece frame 
of heavily and close molded bands of 
fruits and flowers encloses a relief of 
the royal saint on horseback. Nor must 
we forget the triptych-like structures 
sometimes attached to walls, particular¬ 
ly in connection with niches, in many 
old Italian rooms. 
Baroque. (1) The Baroque style 
emerged gradually, of course, from the 
Renaissance background, but Baroque 
forms in frames, as in all else, soon 
came to wear a distinctly typical char¬ 
acter. We are apt to forget how much 
of the distinctive character of any 
period depends upon the contour and 
distribution of the mold¬ 
ings. In studying frames, 
in which moldings neces¬ 
sarily play so conspicu¬ 
ous a part, this fact is 
strongly brought before 
us. The most character¬ 
istic types of movable 
Baroque frames echoed 
the bold, swelling, curv¬ 
ing lines dominant in the 
architecture and furni¬ 
ture which represent the period. 
There was the frame with straight 
outer and inner edges and the broad 
surface between, either flat or slightly 
convex, covered with small convex rip¬ 
ples or wavings, generally in the natural 
walnut or else painted black. Often¬ 
times there was a narrow gold fillet 
next to the picture. Another character¬ 
istic Baroque frame, polychrome and 
gilt or wholly gilt, had a broad flat 
surface between the outer and the inner 
moldings—in this respect it was much 
like the Renaissance type previously 
mentioned. On this surface were either 
masses of boldly modeled foliage at in¬ 
tervals and at the angles, or else, a 
circular bar with heavy twined foliage 
at intervals. There was 
also the form designed 
in purely architectural 
vein with pillars at the 
sides and pediment atop 
differing, however, from 
the corresponding Renais¬ 
sance frame in that all 
the details clearly be¬ 
longed to the Baroque 
genius. It might be either 
{Continued on page 72) 
Section of charac¬ 
teristic gilt Neo- 
Classic frame 
Section of Neo- 
Classic frame with 
flutings 
Florentine Renais¬ 
sance frame with 
restrained mold¬ 
ings and broad 
surfaces in blue 
and gold. Cour¬ 
tesy of Rosenbach 
Galleries 
