A good frame does more than hold a picture. It sets the tone of a room before anyone has properly looked at what's inside it. An ornate gilt frame can make a modest print feel important, and a plain antique moulding can help a bold modern piece settle in.
Frames carry their own history too, in their shape, their ornament and the way they were made. Once you know what to look for, you'll start spotting it everywhere. This guide covers the styles we see most often, how to tell a genuinely old frame from a newer one, and how to look after gilding.
Antique, vintage or antique-style?
These three words get used fairly loosely, so it's worth being clear about what they mean.
- Antique generally means at least 100 years old.
- Vintage covers older pieces that haven't reached 100 yet, which broadly means most of the twentieth century.
- Antique-style means newly made in a traditional profile. Our made-to-measure frames are antique-style. They're handmade to order in the UK in historic shapes, and finished to look as though they've already lived a life.
None of these is better than the others. A genuine antique has real age and a story behind it. An antique-style frame gives you the look in exactly the size you need.
The styles
Baroque
Baroque frames are the showstoppers. They're deep, heavy and richly decorated, with carved leaves (often acanthus), scrolls and shells running all the way round the moulding. The style takes its name from the seventeenth-century Baroque period, when frames were meant to be as grand as the paintings and palaces they were made for.
A Baroque frame suits a large painting in a room with high ceilings. It also works surprisingly well as a contrast. Put a contemporary portrait or a simple black-and-white photograph in a heavy Baroque frame and it looks deliberate and confident.
Swept
You can spot a swept frame by its outline. Rather than running in straight lines, the edges curve in and out, and the corners and centres are usually marked with ornamental cartouches. The style grew out of eighteenth-century French Rococo design and was widely revived in the nineteenth century.
Swept frames have a lightness that Baroque ones don't. They look lovely around mirrors, and they add some movement to a gallery wall full of rectangles.
Chippendale
"Chippendale" is the name given to frames made in the English Rococo style of the mid-eighteenth century. It comes from the cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale, whose published designs were hugely influential. Look for C- and S-shaped scrolls, pierced or open carving, and a lopsided, almost playful feel.
It's a delicate style that suits mirrors, portraits and smaller pieces, and it packs a lot of character into a small frame.
Victorian
The Victorians produced an enormous range of frames, so the label covers a lot of ground. Many of them use ornament made from composition, usually called "compo". This was a mouldable mixture that could be pressed into shapes and stuck onto a timber frame before gilding. It made richly decorated frames far more affordable, which is one reason so many have survived.
Victorian frames often have deep, rounded profiles with running patterns of leaves, beads or flowers. They're at home in period houses, and they look just as good against a dark, modern wall.
Ribbed
Ribbed (or reeded) frames are decorated with fine parallel ridges running along the moulding. They're more restrained than the carved styles, relying on the way light catches the ridges rather than on ornament. They're a good choice when you want warmth and texture without any fuss, and they suit prints, drawings, photographs and modern work.
Classic
We use "classic" for simpler gilt mouldings. These have a clean profile, sometimes with a beaded or decorated inner edge, and no heavy ornament. It's the most versatile style of all, and the easiest to hang alongside others.
How to tell a genuine antique frame
There's no single test, but if you see several of these signs together, you're probably looking at the real thing.
- Worn gilding with colour underneath. Traditional gilding was laid over layers of gesso and a coloured clay called bole, which is often reddish or ochre. Where the gold has worn away on the edges and high points, you'll see that colour coming through.
- Craquelure. This is a fine network of cracks in the gesso and gilding that builds up over decades as the timber moves.
- Losses to the ornament. Compo is brittle, so small chips and missing sections are common on old frames. They're a sign of age, not a reason to walk away.
- The back of the frame. Look for timber that has darkened with age, old nail holes, hand-cut nails, scraps of old paper backing and marks left by earlier hanging fixings.
- The corners. On old frames the corners have often opened up slightly as the wood has shrunk.
Wear like this is part of what you're paying for. We describe and photograph every piece honestly, and if you'd like a closer look before you buy, just ask and we'll send more photos.
Choosing a frame for your picture
Scale. Wide mouldings suit large pictures and delicate mouldings suit small ones. Breaking this rule on purpose, say with a tiny drawing in a huge frame, can look wonderful, as long as it's clearly intentional.
Period. Matching the frame to the date of the picture is the traditional approach, but a contrast is often more interesting. Ornate gold around a modern piece is one of the most reliable tricks in interior design.
Colour. Gold is warm and goes well with creams, greens, deep blues and blacks. Dark walls are particularly good at making gilding glow. Bronze and darker finishes are quieter, and they work well in groups.
The wall around it. Think about the other frames it'll hang alongside. A mix of styles looks as though it's been collected over time, which is usually exactly the effect people are after. Our guide to gallery wall ideas using vintage and ornate gold frames goes into this in more detail.
Caring for gilt frames
Gilding is more fragile than it looks, and most damage is done by well-meant cleaning.
- Dust gently with a soft, dry brush. A clean make-up brush or pastry brush works well.
- Never use water or a damp cloth. Traditional water gilding sits on layers that dissolve in water, so moisture can lift the gold right off.
- Don't use cleaning sprays or polishes of any kind.
- Keep frames away from damp and direct heat, including radiators and steam from the bathroom.
- Hold the frame by its sides, not by the ornament, which can snap off.
- Leave repairs to a professional gilder. Gilding is a specialist craft, and an amateur repair is very hard to undo. The Conservation Register, run by the Institute of Conservation (Icon), is a good place to find one near you.
Before you hang an old frame, replace the original cord or wire. Our guide to hanging a heavy mirror or antique frame safely explains what to use instead.
Find your frame
Browse our ornate vintage frames, each one sourced and one of a kind. Or choose a profile from our made-to-measure collection, where Baroque, swept, Chippendale, Victorian, ribbed and classic styles are all handmade to order in the UK.