notes on turner's picture frames

Museum Management and Curatorship,Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 324–333, 1998 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reservedPergamon

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Professional NotesPicture Framing

Notes on Turner’s Picture Frames

Picture frames have always been vul-nerable to the low esteem in whichthey have, until recently, been held;and the settings chosen by Turner him-self for his paintings have sufferedfurther from a periodic coolingtowards 19th century artefacts, so thatvery few of them survive.

Fortuitously, his working lifecoincided with a decline in the art offrame-making which began with theNapoleonic Wars and accelerated dur-ing the first half of the 19th century.The general movement at this timefrom hand-crafted work to factory pro-duction, the fluctuations in the econ-omy, and the emergence of a new classof consumer all increased a demandfor machine-turned mouldings andcheap composition ornament. Mass-produced frames soon became the pre-ferred choice for exhibits in the RoyalAcademy of Arts, London, and ParisSalon, as well as for commissionedpaintings, and Turner’s choice of con-temporary settings may therefore havebeen seen by later generations as dis-posable packaging rather than as anintegral part of the work of art. How-ever, an examination of the remainingauthentic examples, together withpaintings which include depictions ofTurner’s framed pictures, and contem-porary comments, indicates that heemployed carefully-considered sol-utions to the question of presentation.

The earliest surviving frame whichis unarguably Turner’s own choicecontains his Diploma Work, Dolbad-ern Castle (R.A. 1800, London, RoyalAcademy), presented on his election tothe Royal Academy, where it hasremained almost undisturbed eversince. Its principal feature is a deepconcave moulding (known as a“scotia”), bordered on the top outeredge by a bundle of reeds or fascesbound with a ribbon, and inside byacanthus-and-tongue ornament. It wasoriginally water-gilded on a pale mauve“Regency” bole.1 This basic section,varied by the addition or subtractionof decorative elements, was one oftwo main types of frame used byTurner throughout his career. Itderives from a late 18th century Neo-Classical or “Morland” frame, namedby association with the artist GeorgeMorland, and during the early 19thcentury variants were used by JohnConstable, amongst others. Althoughby no means originating with Turner,this design does stand out from theDiploma frames of his contemporaries,which tended to be flatter Neo-Classi-cal patterns. The deep hollow or scotiais a device for focusing attention uponthe image and enhancing its perspec-tive, whilst also helping to diffuse lightonto the surface of the painting. Theoverall weight of the frame makes itparticularly appropriate for larger land-

325Professional Notes

scapes, and by isolating the imagefrom the surrounding wall gives itimportance and emphasis.

A decorative version of this plainscotia frame, the hollow filled withcross-cut acanthus leaves moulded incomposition, was used for The Bridge-water Seapiece (R.A. 1801, Private Col-lection, currently on loan to theNational Gallery, London). Joseph Far-ington mentions it in his Diary:“Edridge$spoke of the narrowness ofTurner’s mind$after the Marquiss ofStafford [sic] had pd. Him £250guineas for ‘the Fishing boats’ He after-wards applied several times to have 20guineas for the frame, but it was notpaid Him” [Garlick and MacIntyre,1979]. When it was newly gilded, thehollow with its acanthus ornamentwould have created a halo of flickeringlight around the painting, lending itvitality and movement, and perhapsjustifying Turner’s claim for furtherpayment. The radiating effect of theleaves helps to enhance the spatialdepth of the seascape, and besides itsdecorative richness and versatility, thepattern boasts a Classical resonancewhich Turner would have appreciated.

For the Frontispiece of his Liber Stu-diorum, which was published in 1812,he created a self-conscious amalgam ofClassical motifs, the centrepiece ofwhich was a framed representation ofhis own painting of The Rape of Eur-opa. The pieces of fallen masonry,capitals, and other shards of antuiquitywhich surround it, as well as the mythit depicts, all point to his wish to roothis own art in a Classical tradition, giv-ing it depth by a display of learning.The frame is decorated with a patternof anthemia, derived from 18th cen-tury gout grec by way of the newlyfashionable Empire style, and appropri-ate for a Greek myth. However, for hisactual frames he seems to have stayedfaithful to the equally Classical but

more Roman motif of the acanthusleaf.

Plain scotia frames with Classicalornament, similar versions to that onDolbadern Castle, were made to dis-play Turner’s work in the collection ofthe 3rd Earl of Egremont. The wholecollection, including its London sec-tion, was eventually brought togetherby the Earl in Petworth House, whereit remains. The frames, mainly threevariations of scotia, pearls, rais-de-coeurs2 and fasces, were again mainlysupplied by the framemaker C. Gerardand his bills of 1808 to 1810 still sur-vive. They were paid by the Earl, butgiven the relationship between the art-ist and this particular patron, Turnermay well have indicated his preferredstyle of frame — especially sinceanother of Gerard’s items was billed asa “Rich frame for Mr Turners Gallery”.3

Both plain and acanthus versions ofthe scotia frame also remain in theTate Gallery and National Gallery, Lon-don; although it is not clear how manyof these are original to the pictures.Turner had left his work to the nationon his death in 1851, though the so-called Turner Bequest was delivered tothe National Gallery in 1856 as a col-lection of unframed paintings. JabezTepper, the lawyer acting for Turner’slegatee, had to grant the Trustees ofthe Gallery formal permission to take“all or any of the Picture frames$nowon the Testator’s Premises 47 QueenAnne St”.4 How many were actuallytaken was never recorded; neither dowe know how many were discardedduring the course of the next centuryas the pictures were moved from gal-lery to gallery. Certainly, some of thoseoriginal frames were badly damagedduring their travels as in the case ofthat subsequently associated with TheBattle of Trafalgar.

The Battle of Trafalgar (1806)makes a prominent appearance in E.R.

326 Professional Notes

Taylor’s painting, ’Twas a Famous Vic-tory (Birmingham Art Gallery), whichshows one of the Turner Rooms at theNational Gallery as it was arranged in1883. All the larger Turners there arepresented in wide scotia frames witha convex bay-leaf-and-berry ornamenton the top edge, and are hung in closeproximity, the deep gilt borders effec-tively isolating each painting from itsneighbours. Similar frames can be seenin H.E. Tidmarsh’s grisaille of theother Turner Room in the National Gal-lery (c. 1883, London, GuildhallLibrary and Art Gallery); the large num-ber involved, as well as the design,make it almost certain that these wereindeed the original Turner frames. Thepresent setting of The Battle of Trafal-gar has been created from the greatlyrestored carcase of such a frame, witha new slip and a reeded top moulding,the carved leaf-and-berry and originalgilt slip having been lost. So, appar-ently, have all save two of the otherframes made to this pattern.5

Similar Neo-Classical scotia framescan be seen together with Louis XV-style patterns, Turner’s other favouredframe type, in George Jones’s paintingsof the artist’s own gallery (Interior ofTurner’s Gallery, a pair, c. 1852,Oxford, Ashmolean Museum). The pic-tures were displayed in a single close-hung tier on the low red walls, anotherrow propped beneath them on thefloor. The effect is of a room almostcompletely panelled with paintings,their frames acting like a grid of goldenmortar. These low walls, together withthe system of toplighting by diffuseddaylight carefully worked out byTurner (probably with the help of SirJohn Soane [Gage, 1969]), meant thatthe deep frames (in both styles)required by Turner’s relatively largeworks had no disadvantage of castshadow; they existed solely toenhance the paintings.

The revival Louis XV-style centre-and-corner frame uses a slightlygrander idiom than the linear scotiaframe, and is more overtly decorativeand softer of line. It may have beenadopted as a “patron’s frame”. Itappears, for example, in Turner’sdepictions of his own work for one ofhis earliest patrons — in Walter Faw-kes’s Exhibition at Grosvenor Place(c. 1819, Mr and Mrs Nicholas Horton-Fawkes), where Fawkes’s drawing-room is painted, full of close-framedTurner watercolours.6 Here, both pic-tures and frames have been absorbedinto formal patterns against the buff-coloured walls, while the swept sil-houettes of the larger frames arereflected in the curvaceous giltwoodfurniture. Even the blue-stripedupholstery seems to have been chosento echo the skies and seas of Turner’swatercolours, so that the room itselfbecomes a frame for the artist’s work,and one which his careful record of itseems to approve.

In Walter Fawkes’s Yorkshire house,Farnley Hall, Turner painted anotherinterior where his own work hung —Drawing-room, Farnley (1818, PrivateCollection) shows his oil painting Dortor Dordrecht: The Dort packet-boatfrom Rotterdam becalmed (now NewHaven, Yale Center for British Art).Like Fawkes’s London collection ofTurners, the Dort was then housed ina frame with prominent corners (here,straight-sided), now unfortunatelyreplaced by a linear scotia frame;7 andTurner’s depiction of it once againimplies approval of its presentation.Two oils painted for John Nash (andnow in the Sheepshanks Collection atthe Victoria and Albert Museum) alsohave straight frames with shell-and-foli-ate corners; whilst B.G. Windus’s col-lection of Turner watercolours haduniform swept Louis XV-style settingswith projecting corners. A large part


of this latter collection was recorded,framed and hanging in Windus’slibrary, by John Scarlett Davis, whopainted it in 1835 (watercolour, Lon-don, British Museum).

As with the Petworth paintings, it isdifficult to pin down responsibility forthe choice of framing in these collec-tions. The artist may have beeninvolved, to a greater or lesser degree,in the patron’s decision; he may havestood back from the process, or havechosen and obtained the frame him-self. Only the consistent emergence oftwo main types from the frames whichremain to us, together with the evi-dence of his own gallery, indicate thatTurner accepted (possiblyorchestrated) his patrons’ preferences,that he used related patterns himself,and that he certainly produced hiswork in the knowledge of how itwould be presented.

He himself chose a Louis XV-stylemost notably for the painting of Admi-ral Van Tromp’s barge (R.A. 1831,London, Sir John Soane’s Museum).This was exhibited at the Royal Acad-emy, where Soane bought it for 250guineas [£262.50] — a price which (aswith The Bridgewater Seapiece,above) would traditionally haveincluded the ornate swept frame —and there is no record in Soane’sarchives of its having been sub-sequently reframed. Although the vol-uptuously curved shell-and-foliate car-touches echo the lines of galleon andwave, it is not a convenient setting fora marine painting, and it was presum-ably intended to enhance and dramat-ize a “grand machine”. A similarcentre-and-corner frame was used toreframe the large Regulus in 1837(1828 and 1837, London, TateGallery), a picture which also features,and glorifies, a military leader: see T.Fearnley’s Turner painting Regulus(1837, N. Young Fearnley Collection).

From 1840 Turner began to playwith the conventionally rectangularshape of the canvas, producing squareimages which he would set in frameswith a round or octagonal sight. TheLouis XV-style pattern was adapted tothis format by extending it inwardswith delicate foliate spandrels. Its firstappearance was as the Rococo framewith tiered rocaille cartouches used onBacchus and Ariadne (R.A. 1840), andthen later for The Dawn of Christian-ity (R.A. 1841, Ulster Museum, Belfast,see Figure 1), on which it remains.8

Martin Anglesea suggests that Turnerthought “the circular or octagonal for-mat agreed better with the field ofvision actually perceived by the eye$

[it] also suited the vortex-like, centrifu-gal or funnel-shaped compositionswhich he was continually producing inthe 1840s”.9 Tondi in earlier centurieshad often been framed in circular, gar-land-like frames, but Turner followedBaroque and Rococo patterns andretained the square outer contour ofthe frame around the circular or poly-gonal sight. This may have been anextension of the field-of-vision theory,the spandrels of a square frameallowing the work to blend more subt-ley into the wider background; thoughequally it may have been for motivesof economy, since a tondo frame hadalways been more difficult and expens-ive to make, or because he thoughtthat his patrons would not accept aneccentrically-shaped picture into theuniformity of their collections. It wasan unfortunate decision, however,since ovals and tondi have frequentlyremained in their original settingsbecause of the greater cost of refram-ing them, but Turner’s habit of startingwith a square canvas which he paintedfrom corner to corner has left the“improvers” free to replace his originalspandrel frames with standard squareones — thus displaying the entire


1. The Dawn of Christianity, by J.M.W. Turner, oil on canvas, exhibited at the RoyalAcademy, London, 1841, in the Rococo frame in which it remains at the Ulster Museum,

Belfast.

painted surface and subverting theintention and the vision of the artist.The Dawn of Christianity escaped thistreatment because, although the can-vas is square, the image itself is roundand not merely prescribed by a circu-lar sight edge.

Turner used versions of both thescotia and revival Louis XV-style pat-tern as “close frames” (i.e. frames with-out mounts) for his watercolours.Unhappily, these have fallen victim ineven greater numbers to changes intaste and the technology of framing.Watercolours in both private andmuseum collections have for conser-vation reasons been taken from theiroriginal frames, mounted in pale-col-oured acid-free boards and set in plainpine mouldings. This does much fortheir preservation but nothing fortheir presentation.

A rare surviving example of an orig-

inal “close” frame can be seen on thewatercolour, St Hughes denouncingvengeance on the Shepherd ofCormayer$ (Val d’Aosta) (R.A. 1803,London, Sir John Soane’s Museum).This is a scotia pattern, decorated —like the frame of The Bridgewater Sea-piece — with acanthus leaves, anddefined by an inner gilt flat, egg-and-dart moulding, and a knulled top edge.The work was purchased for 50guineas [£52.50] from Turner’s Galleryby Mrs Soane, and, as in the case ofAdmiral Van Tromp’s barge, there isagain no record of Soane reframing it.The only archival reference to it in theMuseum notes its escape in the 1880sfrom a recommendation to provide itwith a mount “of at least four inchesin width” and a new frame.10 As wellas retaining its original frame it has alsobeen protected from light. The result-ant survival of intensity in the colour


of the paints demonstrates why Turnerchose — as many of his peers did —to frame his watercolours like his oilpaintings, unmounted, in heavy goldenborders. That on the Val d’Aosta isparticularly opulent, compared withcontemporaneous or earlier examplesof 18th century close frames survivingat, for instance, Stourhead House inWiltshire (Figure 2).11

In 1857 a writer in The Builderobserved, of this practice of close-framing watercolours, that “Turneralways contemplated the union of thegold of his colour with the gold of hisframe$ he$ used to urge the hangingof frames containing his drawings ingroups, without intervals between theframes, so that nothing but gold mightbe seen in connection with the draw-ing” [Gage, 1969, p. 163]. The lack ofinterval between the frames was fam-iliar in the hangings commonly used byinstitutions such as the Royal Acad-emy, Old Water-Colour Society andParis Salon, where simple want of suf-

2. Detail of St. Hughes denouncing vengeance on the Shepherd of Cormayer in theValley of d’Aoust, by J.M.W. Turner, watercolour, exhibited at the Royal Academy, Lon-don, 1803, and purchased by Mrs. Soane from Turner’s Gallery. This large watercolourretains its original "close" frame — without any mount — and remains in Sir John Soane’s

Museum, London.

ficient space produced exhibitionwalls resembling secular polyptychs,with “the appearance of an immensemass of gilt gingerbread” [Hardie,1967].12 However, Turner’s patronsalso followed this method of hang-ing — notably Windus, with his water-colours, whilst Turner’s own galleryshows a similar exercise in theexclusion of as much visible wall spaceas possible. This dependence on theframe as the sole foil to the painting(in either medium) is dictated again bythe richness of colour Turneremployed; where background didintrude, he responded by intensifyingthe relative tint in his painting —hence the notorious increments in hisreds on Varnishing Days at the RoyalAcademy.

His principal care with regard toframes seems thus to have been themaintenance of a tonal equilibrium inhis work, by offsetting it with a widemargin of gold, then considered a“neutral” colour. The section and orna-


ment of the moulding producedfurther effects, isolating that picturefrom others; enhancing pictorial depthand perspective; providing secondaryillumination; echoing compositionalforms and lines; indicating the gran-deur of the work. Yet Turner neverseems to have been tempted to designhis own frames from scratch, as thePre-Raphaelites were to do after hisdeath; he used and adapted existingpatterns. His only excursion into inno-vatory design is in his famous use ofship’s cable to frame his work,reported first of his Roman exhibitionin 1828. This included a View of Orvi-eto (1828), Vision of Medea (1828),and Regulus (1828, reworked 1837and reframed in revival Louis XV-style;see above); (all London, Tate Gallery).J.A. Koch described the exhibition inhis Moderne Kunstchronik (published1834), noting that: “The pictures weresurrounded with ship’s cable insteadof gilt frames” [Gage, 1969, p. 104].The cable was apparently painted toresemble gilding, and was either an actof economy or a desperate measure inthe face of a deadline. However,Turner shrewdly saw the inherentpossibilities; a report of the same tech-nique used later at the Royal Academyemphasizes the theatricality of itsunveiling, whilst the painting to whichit was applied this time was appropri-ately a marine subject:

His brother artists greatly admired it,and all remarked on the absence ofthe frame. Day after day theyexclaimed: “Where’s the frame?”Turner replied, “All right, it is com-ing”. Only on the morning before theprivate view did he make this good.He brought four lengths of the thick-est ship’s cable, and nailed themround the picture; this he paintedwith yellow ochre, and brightenedthe prominent parts with real gold.The effect was excellent and people

went so far as to admire the richnessand appropriateness of the frame.13

Carved rope mouldings were alreadypart of the established vocabulary ofarchitectural ornament, so this use ofcable may not have seemed quite soradical to spectators who saw the fin-ished, gilded border on the painting,as opposed to those who saw Turnerproduce it dramatically, like a con-juror’s rabbit; at any rate, it does notseem to have spawned a genre ofinstant framing.

After Turner’s death, his two stapleframe types continued to be rehashedand served up in ever cheaper andmore unpalatable forms, debasing therelatively chaste, well-made revival pat-terns he had used; whilst for watercol-ours fashion veered from close framestowards plainer mouldings and palecard mounts.

The National Gallery, bequeathednearly twenty thousand of Turner’sunframed drawings, set only three ofthe largest in gilded close frames.Charles Eastlake, then the Director ofthe Gallery, reported,

$that these three drawings had beenexhibited at the Royal Academy, andthat, when so exhibited, the drawingitself was, in each case, in contactwith the gilt frame, without mount-ing. The Committee were of the opi-nion that $ no mounting is advis-able. The pattern of a framesuggested by Mr Russell was adoptedfor the three drawings severally.14

The Committee decided that a selec-tion of the rest should also be set inRussell’s pattern: “Frame to be in oilgold 2 ins wide/flat with 2 engravedlines”; and that most of them were tohave “a French mount (that is a sheetof thick paper, of a tint agreed on$)”.Only the Liber Studiorum drawingsretained, save a few, Turner’s ownmounts. They were “to be framedsingly with french mount 3 ins wide —


Drawings not to be desturbed [sic] —dirty mounts to be adapted accord-ingly$”. The work was carried out byColnaghi, at a cost of £116.12.00[£116.60] for 67 watercolours.

John Ruskin, as an executor of Tur-ner’s will, interfered tirelessly in thedeliberations of the Committee,determined to see that the paintingswere protected adequately from lightand dust, and giving as much of hisattention to the backs as to the frontsof the frames. His ideal was a specialgallery for Turner’s watercolours, witheach in a “golden case and closingdoors”, like a mediaeval triptych;15 buthe suggested a more practical systemto the National Gallery’s Trustees:

The drawings chosen for permanentexhibition should$ be arranged intwo rows along a well lighted wallnot exposed to sunshine. They neednot be in separate frames: a $ nar-row bar of gold separating themounts would be all that wasneeded, but some considerable spaceshould be allowed in the mounts,otherwise the drawings will injureeach other.16

Here we see the beginning of theclipping of Turner’s vision: where hehad wished that “nothing but goldmight be seen in connection with thedrawing”, the gold was now to bepushed out to a perimeter edging, andreplaced by a tinted mount.

Ruskin’s solution for his own Turnerwatercolours had been to commissionlight-excluding mahogany cabinets,into which groups of framed andmounted paintings could be slid. Herecommended similar cases to the Tru-stees; mounts were to be white, while“The frame is of white pine; becausethe whiter the wood, the less it hurtsthe colour of the sketch”.17 Cabinets tothe coloured design he attached wereapparently made for the National Gal-lery, but have long since been lost;

Ruskin’s own cabinets remain, withBembridge School on the Isle of Wight,and in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cam-bridge. The cream of the national col-lection was to be housed like this, shutaway from atmospheric damage;whilst watercolours of lesser impor-tance were to be exhibited to the pub-lic in an arrangement more like thatsuggested by Ruskin in his first letterto the National Gallery Trustees (seeabove; 8 Dec. 1856). Arthur Severn’sView of Ruskin’s Bedroom, Brant-wood (1900, Bembridge School, Isle ofWight) shows that Ruskin’s ownTurner drawings were hung like this,almost edge-to-edge in white mountsand narrow gilt frames, and thesebecame the standard treatments forTurner’s watercolours in public andprivate collections.

Ruskin’s evangelizing vision of howbest to present his hero’s workbecame so far the accepted methodthat in the 20th century, the Farnleyseries of twenty watercolours wasreframed in this way. C.F. Bell haddescribed the series as it still existedin the 1890s, in an annotation to hisown copy of Exhibited Works of JMWTurner [Bell catalogue, 1901, Victoriaand Albert Museum, London]:

$the original collection of Turner’swater-colours$ were all framed inthese deep gilt frames, some decor-ated with the family crest, in whichFawkes and the painter had hadthem put.

The reframing, into narrow giltframes with white mounts (illustratedin Country Life, 27 May, 1954, p.1714), destroyed what was probablythe only surviving collection of Tur-ner’s paintings to have been framed bythe artist. Other groups — forinstance, the Lloyd Collection in theBritish Museum — tend to have uni-form settings and mounts chosen bythe purchaser; often, as in this case,


produced c. 1912 by the firm ofAgnew, which seems automatically tohave reframed many of the Turnerswhich have passed through its hands.Those watercolour frames with inbuiltblinds, which have been described asRuskin’s,18 were almost certainly alsoproduced by Agnew’s, possibly in thelate 19th, but more probably in theearly 20th century.

A loss similar to that of the Farnleyframes is the disappearance of thatmade for Robert Stevenson’s Bell RockLight House (watercolour, 1819,National Galleries of Scotland), forwhich we have apparently the onlyextant Turner sketch for a frame sec-tion (illustrated in Gage, 1980). Thepicture remained until quite recentlyin the possession of the Stevenson fam-ily — often the best guarantee for theretention of the original frame — butunfortunately, when it passed into thecollections of the National Galleries ofScotland it lost this guarantee. Theseemingly universal museum practiceof reclothing watercolours in thewhite mounts and pine frames advo-cated by Ruskin does not extend in anequal gesture of conservation to coverthe original frames — even thosedesigned by the artist.

When we look at Turner’s works,therefore, whether oil paintings orwatercolours, in public or in privatehands, it is important to rememberthat the way they are now presentedis often far from the way in which theartist expected and intended them tobe seen.

Chronological Note onFramemakers Mentioned byTurner

1800 Sends his “respects to MrWilliams”; possibly JohnWilliams of Oxford, with

“Printsellers, Carvers andGilders and Picture-frameMakers” in Pigot’s Directory,1823–24.

1809– James Wyatt, Carver and1812 Gilder, Oxford, commissioned

High St, Oxford and Oxfordfrom the Abingdon Road,sending the frames to Turnerfor exhibition.

1820 “Stegler, the frame-maker,called$”.

1840 Offers John Sheepshanks achoice between Venice fromthe Canale della Giudecca$

and Venice, the Bridge ofSighs, adding “$when youdesired me to tell Mr Foord tomake for you the Frame I toldhim to make exactly the likefor me, hence arose the TwoPictures$”

1844 To Thomas Griffith, probablyre Hero and Leander; “$Thestormy Picture you said in theParlour for Mr Foords Hero toadvise with about bothcleaning and lining$”. (fromThe Collected Correspondenceof J.M.W. Turner, ed. JohnGage, Oxford, 1980.)“Foord” is George Foord of 52Wardour Street, Soho. He wasframemaker for the Society ofPainters in Watercolour fromc. 1830 to 1850, and alsoworked for Ruskin. His firmlater became the Foord andDickinson which framed workfor Rossetti, Lord Leighton,Albert Moore and Whistler,etc., and in 1861 made theframes for Ruskin’s Turnerswhich were housed inmahogany cases.

Footnotes1. Information from Annie Ablett.2. A leaf-tip ornament, also known as “lamb’s

tongue”.


3. Information from Alistair Laing.4. National Gallery Archives (NG5/129/1856).5. Information from John Anderson.6. See below for Turner’s use of the close

frame. Walter Fawkes’s exhibition at Grosv-enor Place is reproduced in colour in Hill,1995, p. 53.

7. Information from Malcolm Warner.8. This suggestion as to the two occupants of

this particular frame comes from ProfessorGerard E. Finley, via Martin Anglesea,Keeper of Fine Art, Ulster Museum.

9. Martin Anglesea, catalogue entry on TheDawn of Christianity, no date.

10. Sir John Soane’s Museum, Trustees MinuteBook 2, February 1883; information fromHelen Dorey.

11. The close frames at Stourhead are generallynarrower and simpler, characterized by aplain scotia, a sight moulding of the smallleaf tips known as “rais-de-coeurs”, and a topmoulding of leaf-and-berry, twisted ribbonor pearls. A number frame the work of Abra-ham Louis Ducros (1748–1810), who,according to Colt Hoare, should be creditedwith the revolutionary step of framing wat-ercolours like oil paintings, in close giltframes (information from Alistair Laing).

12. Representations of these exhibition hang-ings include Pietro Martini’s engraving,$au Salon du Louvre en 1785 (Paris, Bibli-otheque Nationale, Dept. des Estampes);Martini’s engraving after J.H. Ramberg’sExhibition of the Royal Academy, 1787(London, Royal Academy); Samuael P.B.Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre, 1831–33(Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art);Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg’s photograph,Salon de 1861 (Paris, Louvre); Jean Berard’sA day in the Salon, 1874.

13. W.J. Muller’s recollections, reported in Cust,1895, quoted by Gage, 1969, pp. 163–64.

14. National Gallery Archives (NG5/131/1856;“Dec. 5 Report of Director”). The three wat-ercolours were Battle of Font Bard, Vald’Aosta; Edinburgh from the Carlton Hill;and Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence. Rus-sell was one of the Trustees of theNational Gallery.

15. Ruskin to his father, quoted in Ruskin andthe English Watercolour, exh. cat., Whit-worth Gallery, University of Manchester,1989, p. 42.

16. National Gallery Archives (NG5/131/1856;Dec. 8).

17. National Gallery Archives (NG5/220/1857;March 2).

18. For example, on Turner’s The Falls of Terni,c. 1818, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery.

Bibliography

Bell CF. Exhibited Works of J.M.W. Turner,1901, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Country Life, 27 May 1954, p. 1714.Cust L. “The Portraits of J.M.W. Turner”, Maga-

zine of Art, 1895, pp. 249–50”.Gage G. Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth.

London, 1969.Gage J, editor. The Collected Correspondence of

J.M.W. Turner, Oxford, 1980.Garlick K, MacIntyre A, editors. The Diary of

Joseph Farington. 1979, vol. VI.Hill D. Harewood Masterpieces: English Water-

colours and Drawings, Harewood HouseTrust, 1995.

Hardie M, Watercolour Painting in Britain.London, 1967, vol. I.

Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts

notes on turner's picture frames

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