I'm Letizia and I'm the Curator. I'm here in Conservation with Larry Keith,
our Head of Conservation and Peter Schade, Head of Framing.
Now as the picture is nearing the end of its conservation treatment, we're beginning to
think about how we might frame the picture and whether we need to acquire a
frame or perhaps make a frame for the painting.
We bought it without a frame as a picture, as you remember, that was not restored
and not framed so in a way we've got to sort of clean slate: we can start from
scratch and see what works and what doesn't work without any sort of
preconceptions.
So, it's a really interesting moment where Peter's
gathered together a variety of frames and this is a chance to really see what
works and get a sense about what works formally and so we often nowadays can
make very large scale photographic reproductions. These happen to be taken
before treatment started but they're really useful for giving an indication
about how the frame might work and we can test them, you know, much more happily
than using the painting itself which is here, nearing completion, so I think Peter
would like to say a little bit about the kind of frames we have and why they're here.
We try to match historically, kind of, appropriate frames
with paintings and have a selection of a variety of Italian frames
of the early 17th century which give us everything from carved to black and gold
to gilded to silver to wooden to brown painted so there's a variety that we can
all try out to see how tonally and how the shapes work with the painting.
It was interesting, of course, this painting is almost square and
it'll be very unlikely that we find in an old frame that would fit perfectly so
all these frames will also have to be considered with a view to adjusting the
frame or using the frame as a model for reproduction that's the options we
need to discuss.
And in looking at this big variety of frames we've kind
of narrowed it down to at least two things we're most interested in but it's
interesting to think about how frames which are correct historically and
appropriate sometimes just don't work with the painting and that's the thing I
find interesting is there's a combination of knowing about the style
and history of frames and then we still, like in conservation
itself, ultimately we're making nuanced aesthetic judgments which are up for
discussion. So, for example here, this frame you can see that the carved
elements, which are wonderful, have, in our view anyway, a slight unfortunate
tendency to repeat or compete with the spikes on the Catherine Wheel in a
way that seems a bit distracting and so we're inclined not to go with this frame
for that reason although it's perfectly appropriate.
It's got beautiful colour and beautiful weight
and it's got the original surface which is
something that we find with frames or we aim for. It's very good in all those
respects. Also it would be adaptable; that's something that I'm concerned
about that whether it's feasible to adapt an ornament and this would be
possible to adjust in size but actually that really doesn't work well
in this area.
- and it's interesting, there's no substitute really for
just trying a one-to-one reproduction with the frame itself because that's
something - it would be really hard to...I don't think we would have gathered that as
much from just looking at an image and so with just playing with the things
you gain all sorts of insight, I think, into what works formally, what seems
right even though they all may be, historically anyway, kind of correct.
With any frame around this painting we've talked about the fact that the way she's
composed it with quite a tight crop it is really interesting to see, even with
these photographic reproductions before conservation, you can start to see how
the figure has more weight and how it emerges from the plane in really a very
convincing a sort of way but I find it fascinating to think about what happens
with a darker value around the picture even though it's articulated with the
gold you get a sense, I think, of her kind of emerging even more powerfully from
around the frame yet without feeling too contained by it but the gold has a
beautiful kind of colour and patination that's really nice particularly with the
clean picture itself, you know, the less yellow...
- The cooler values of the cleaned picture work
particularly well with the gilded frame.
And so at this stage I mean it's not that we're necessarily absolutely
going to commit to one of these frames but it's so useful to see in the round
different families of frames and just get a sense about
kinds of formal qualities that enhance, you know, our view of the painting and
how it's working.
- This actually looks surprisingly insubstantial next
to frames that are fractionally wider but this just looks very, very
broken up. It makes the painting look less strong I guess.
- It's such a subjective thing as well, I really don't like this finish on this
picture. It doesn't work for me.
- Yeah, it's a different kind of
experience about how the relationship works between the figure and the frame.
It's not that one's right and one's wrong, they just have different qualities
and that's kind of the challenge and the fun of trying to work out what
might serve the painting best.
- Of course, you think about the sort of intrinsic importance of a frame, I think
about it curatorially. Is it the kind of frame this picture would have been hung
in and also I'm thinking is it something that proportionally might work here but
then weirdly doesn't work in the Gallery, in a very large picture gallery with
many other pictures of competing for space in a way so we have to kind of
bring all those elements into our decision-making. I agree with you with
the black: I think the black really helps to, sort of, extend the picture rather
than compress it but actually I find that the fact that this frame is quite
large works very well. It gives an importance to the figure, a presence.
- Yes, this has got, kind of, a reverse inner section that
that projects into the room. Actually the painting sits almost
exactly the same level as this black painted section whereas here the
frame actually pushes the picture physically outwards so it's more of a
reverse section which is, kind of, a typical 17th century device:
the paintings projecting forwards. I think, especially portraits, were framed
in a way that would project them outwards into a room rather than a frame
that makes you look into a space where you can see a world with either the
landscape or with a figurative scene, a portrait, I think, was always meant to be
projected into the room
- And that's certainly what she's trying to achieve
artistically with the way she's constructed the colours and the values
and the modeling of the arm and the rest that I keep talking about.
- And Peter: so with one or other of these choices,
obviously they need to be adapted
because they don't actually fit the picture or we're faced with the decision
of whether to use them as a model, perhaps to create something in the
framing workshop here. I mean, perhaps you could talk through the pros and cons,
particularly with the smaller one which is a harder thing to adapt.
- Yeah that would be really...I mean fortunately...and I think the
reproductions are not absolutely the right size but I think I know that
this size fits, I think in height or width, one dimension, it fits pretty
accurately so that makes it at all possible. I think if the frame had to be
adapted in two ways then one could rule it out but just
adapting it one way is difficult but possible.
- But I think it's worth saying that there are examples,
even now in the Gallery, where we think
a historical model is appropriate for a picture and some of them we can really
reproduce very very effectively.
This is one of those kinds of frames,
I think, because it's not a solid mass of 300 year old gilding that
basically...is that right? I mean it's more easy to make a more
effective reproduction? You're smiling at me!
- Well, reproductions are possible but they
always carry the baggage of modernity, of our time, and
always, in some way, it transfers into reproduction frames
and usually we don't see it now but you can look back at a history of frame
reproduction in the Gallery as well and most reproduction frames after 20-30
years, they don't match up to originals.
Yeah I think that's interesting
that 50 years from now you can always see and it's the same thing
about decisions we make about restoration itself, you know, we think we
try to be, I guess what we can say now is we're very transparent about the
decision-making process but it's definitely an interpretation all the way
down the line and so this is just another aspect of how we take a
view about things, about display, that is never written in stone.
- But I think by using actual old frames of the time,
even if we adapt them, there's a greater
likelihood that they will stand the test of time
- Yeah, I think that's certainly true.
- So looking at this one in particular what would be challenging in
adapting this frame?
- Yeah these Tuscan frames, they're quite common but
they're very very hard to use; I think we've got very few in the Gallery but
they are actually a reasonably common frame to find, partly because they're so
difficult to adapt and this one, in particular, having to be extended in one
dimension would be quite challenging to perform and
basically to do in a way that is invisible and invisible
not only now but also in the long term. Sometimes extensions only
become visible after five or six or ten years when the wood has slightly changed
in size and then cracks appear where an extension has
been made in the past and we select frames very much for the long
term: something that might be on the picture for forever, as far as we're concerned,
and therefore we really have to think about it, especially with
extensions, not to do something that will just look alright for now but will
become visible in in the future.
- It's twice as complicated with these
kinds of frames isn't it? Because, if you make them bigger, you have to keep the
ornament in the middle. You can't just add to one side.
- Yes, this would have to be extended in four places
- So technically that's double the challenge
and double the ethical issue I would say.
- And this can be reproduced
very effectively so, if you want to go for this type of frame, we might have to
consider a reproduction.
- Whereas the gold frame, that would be a matter of
cutting that down, adapting it to make it smaller and that would be more
straightforward?
- This would be fairly straightforward: we have enough
substance to alter this frame so that it would be completely invisible and all we
would see would be the original substance. Obviously we
wouldn't have to add anything to this and also there is no kind of ornament
that would make this frame only work at this size so this is
quite adaptable.
- Is it fair to say that this is the kind of frame that was even
designed and conceived to be any number of lengths?
- Yes, this kind of frame would have
probably been made at different sizes.
- So we're not doing anything that they
wouldn't have been thinking about in the workshop in the 17th century?
- Yeah it's more that our picture is just a really unusual size.