The earliest frames are to be those that surrounded fayum mummy portraits. The stucco frames may have used to hang the portraits in the owner’s home until the time of death, at which point the portrait would have placed over the mummy. Another theory is the portraits painted close to death and around the city in a funeral procession before the body was taken to the embalmer. There have been no historic framed cave paintings found at Two Bedroom Properties in Ohio University.
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Although framing borders in ancient art 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 also thirteenth century Europe. These early framed panel paintings made from one piece. The area painted carved out, there a raised framing border around the outside edge, like a tray. The whole piece then gessoed and gilded. Painting the last thing done.
A Better Way
Realized that this method of producing a frame and the image within in one slab of wood was too costly. A more efficient method eventually developed which used mitred moulding strips. This type of frame is an engaged frame. The early ones made of simple wooden moulding strips attached to the outside edge of a wooden panel.
Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, most European frames church-commissioned and largely unmovable as they were altarpieces and a large part of the church’s architecture. The frames ornamented with architectural elements mimicking the exteriors of the great cathedrals. However, the Italian Renaissance of the 14th and 15th centuries saw the rise of arts patrons extending beyond the church. Wealthy nobles such as the Medici family could now bring art and frames into their estate. Done by commissioning allegorical, devotional and portrait paintings. This was the advent of the portable or moveable frame. Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (1423) is the first altarpiece with panel and frame in two separate pieces. Making it the first independent frame as we know it today.
Early Americana
Pictures frames as art highly developed in Orthodox countries (e.g., Russia, Serbia) and used to cover icons in churches. The earliest American frames, known as American Empire Style Frames, are very spare and utilitarian. They are similar to the simple cove or scoop in wall molding found in colonial architecture. Many picture frames found at Two Bedroom Properties at Bobcat Rentals student housing if you choose to put them there.
