Be careful with the Midas touch...

Hello my friends. 

I have collected a few frames for miniature paintings over the years and on a wet and sulky saturday I decided to try and gild them. The frames you see in the top picture are all resin or plastic frames of different makers and sources. 

The picture above shows you the difference between the 'gold' colour these cheap little frames came with from the factory, and the colour and lustre of metal gold leaf. I love the colour of gold on these frames. 

In the picture above and below you can see the gilding in progress. The plastic frame of my Maria the Medici portrait is first cleaned. than covered in gold sise. Gold sise is a kind of glue based on bole clay that dries up sticky. the metal leaf (gold, silver etc.) sticks very well to it. And below you can see the end result. Although this young lady will get a totally different frame eventualy. 

And that got most of the frames covered in a layer of gold leaf . Now all I have to do is find the right pictures, resize them where necessary and give them a multi layer varnish treatment to make them look more like paintings like I did with the portrait of Liliane Zonneschut. Here I go into the gilding process in more detail. 

But not all frames should be gilded! in the 17th century black ebony or ebonised wood was highly prised for picture frames. And a house like Huis ter Swinnendael contains several pictures from that century too. The Zonneschut's have always been collectors of art since they had amassed their wealth and needed to show they were cultured people. 

That is what I mean in the title of this post by being careful with the midas Touch! So out came the black paint and those thrames which fit the style got a treatment with the brush. This does mean that two gilded frames got painted over, but I left some gold showing to enhance the look. 

As you can see above gold shimmers through the black paint here and there where it is not suposed to. So a second layer was requiered. Then it was time to fill the frames. It would be super to only have hand painted miniatures hanging on the walls, but that is waaaaay out of budget zone. Although I slowly collect miniature paintings, most frames will be filled with prints. I have collected many many pictures for this project. Most of these will never be used, but they are great to sift through and collect paintings or portraits that I want to hang in Huis ter Swinnendael. 

But not all will be filled with prints. Using 18th silhouettes as a guide I have drawn a few on cream coloured paper. This worked better than expected and I ended up with four silhouettes that were just right to be used for decorating Huis ter Swinnendael. 

Then it was time to cut out pieces of 2 mm thick, stiff cardboard for backing up the thin and flimsy prints. I had a long and narrow strip cut off lying around which fits these frames perfectly! Right down to the last millimeter it fits the long or short side of five of the seven picture frames. Only the small frame with the broody looking young man needed an extra cut to fit. The largest frame, holding a painting of Artemis looking at her hound, was glued right o to the glass plate belonging to this old little photo frame. 

Soon all the cardboard back were cut to size and now it was it was time to cut the prints of the paintings to size. As you can see this small collection of paintings is a mix of subjects.

Two very different nudes. Artemis is a mythological subject ofcourse. The naked reclining man however is a biblical subject. It depicts Jacob's dream. Old testament Jacob is sleeping and he dreams about angels climbing up and descending a long ladder between heaven and earth. In the painting this can be seen in the background to the left. .

And apart from that, there is a pair of early 18th century gentlemen. Two brothers that are portrayed by the same french painter. Uncles of Carel Polyander probably. In the two black frames with golden decorations there are two still lifes with porcelain food and persian rugs. Not by the same painter but they match quite nicely.

The frame that came off of the portrait of Maria de Medici now houses an Italian painting of either a young man or Cupid with his bow. He's peering broody out of his frame and the bowstring hangs slack. What coulf  that mean? That his loveis spent? Or he missed his aim? Don't know. It keeps me guessing and that is partly why I chose to enclose this picture in this eclectic lot. 

They are not intended to go onto one wall together. But they would fit as one group though. If the two roundels with silhouettes were replaced by a small painting in a ebonised frame, the group would fit together better. It was however time for the next step in the proces. Varnishing! I varnished the prints of these painings in the same manner I did with Liliane Zonneschut. The varnish does not alter the colours of the print ofcourse, but it does change the way they reflect the light. 

If you look at the above picture with the paintings in their respective frames, and the picture above that, (where the prints lay on top of the frames and the card board backing) you can see what I mean. The lighting in both pictures is different, but that is not what I mean. For example the backgrounds of the 2 portraits and on the two larger still lifes, look darker simply because the layer of varnish changed the way liht is reflected on the surface. I am happy with this change because to me their look is improved.

First a thin even coat of varnish was applied to seal the print off. When that had dried I applied a thicker layer of glossy varnish tapping and swirling with the brush to get a slightly uneven effect to mimic multiple layers of paint varnish and make it look less like an even print and more like an old oil painting with multiple layers of paint and varnish. Because it is a clear and high gloss varnish, you look straight through it when standing in front of it. You only see the dappled effect when the light is reflected off it. Like you can see with the painting of Diana the huntress. 

And there we have it. A small collection of different paintings and portraits brought together and framed in black and/or gold frames in different styles and from different era's. And even a few self drawn silhouettes. I am quite happy with the result. This is it for now. Untill the next post. 

Huibrecht