1985.R.37.b, Picture Frame, France, c. 1720

This small oak frame is in a fine state of preservation. Although it maintains the center and corner cartouche common in French frames of the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries, the carving of tendrils and scrolls pulls all elements of the frame together so that it would form a continuous decorated surface around the work of art it contained. Interestingly, this carved oak frame also preserves its original gilded surface as well as a good deal of the subtle ornament recarved by the master carver in the coat of gesso applied over the carved wooden form.

The size of this frame indicates that it may have been commissioned by one of the great 18th-century Persian connoisseurs of drawings, many of whom were vying with each other to acquire major works in ink, pencil, chalk, and charcoal by the greatest French and Italian masters of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The subtle delicacy of this frame and the generalized rhythms of its carving would no doubt have been appropriate to a great drawing by Raphael, Perugino, or Claude Lorrain.

Dallas Museum of Art, Decorative Arts Highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 69.

- Image of this frame not found/entered in TMS under the accession number 1985.R.37.b, but the physical frame can be found in Reves' storage framing the ink drawing "Harvest Scene" by Jean Francois Millet (1985.R.37). Image of frame does not exist in Brain or Piction. 

Until 1985: Emery Reves (1904-1983) and Wendy Reves (1916-2007) (owned jointly), La Pausa, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France [1]

From 1985: Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, gift of Wendy Reves (1916-2007) [1]

[1] According to: Olivier Meslay and Martha MacLeod, From Chanel to Reves (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, 2015), 4-5.

Apply to objects where number equals 1985.R.37.b