Picture frame

Picture frame mouldings come in a wide variety of profiles, generally in some sort of L shape with an upward "lip" and a horizontal rabbet.

Since the 1980s significant advances have been made in the manufacture of picture glazings, creating a much broader range of options in both glass and acrylic products.

Now, both picture framing glass and acrylic sheet are available with anti-reflective coatings to make the glazing virtually invisible under most lighting conditions.

Another theory is that the portraits were painted close to death and were carried around the city in a funeral procession before the body was taken to the embalmer.

[2] Although framing borders in ancient art were used to divide scenes and ornamentation by ancient Egyptian and Greek artists in pottery and wallpaintings, the first carved wooden frames as we know them today appeared on small panel paintings in twelfth and thirteenth century Europe.

Wealthy nobles such as the Medici family could now bring art and frames into their estate by commissioning allegorical, devotional and portrait paintings.

Under the reign of Francis I, France's first Renaissance monarch from 1515 through 1547, art came to the forefront of daily life and flourished along with picture frames.

From 1610 to 1643, under the reign of Louis XIII in France, the influence of court and refinement took center stage in frame designs.

This paved the way for Baroque design in picture framing, and "Spanish, Flemish, and Italian influences were all at work to produce a curious intermingling and exchange of ideas.

"[6] In England, in the late 17th century the "Lely frame" became popular, a narrow moulding with a spray of small flowers at the corner, and central cartouches.

An English version of the "auricular" mannerist style, meaning curving "ear-shaped" forms, was also popular in the 17th century, and is now known as a "Sunderland frame".

[8][9][10] Pictures frames as art were highly developed in Orthodox countries (e.g., Russia, Serbia) and used to cover icons in churches.

View of a frame-maker's workshop, oil on canvas, circa 1900
The elaborate decoration on this frame may be made by adhering molded plaster pieces to the wood base.
Round Second Empire frame
Italian Renaissance frame, The Annunciation Lucca c1500
Portrait of King Louis XIV in a gilded baroque frame
A portrait photograph of a French soldier in uniform in a frame for domestic use, featuring reliefs of Field Marshal French and Marshal Joffre