A		B
C		D

A picture may be seen in different frames either by the use of computer-generated montages, or by physically standing the painting in successive frames, or both. For museum and privately owned pictures which cannot be brought to the frames, colour montages provide an excellent means of both recording and assessing the visual effects of differing frames. The frames may be seen in London in conjunction with the montages or a full-size image of the picture, and/or subsequently sent to be tested on the painting in situ.

The success of this process has been demonstrated for countless pictures over several decades, a recent example being the reframing of a seventeenth-century Velasquez workshop portrait of Marianne of Austria, Queen of Spain (see figs A,B,C,D).

The frames proposed were first-class examples of contemporary prevailing patterns, any one of which may originally have been applicable, and this selection was supported by numerous photographic archive examples from public collections. The choice, as in so many cases, was governed by the aesthetic relationship to the painting of the form, ornament and finish of each individual frame, as well as by the need to complement the frame styles on the other Spanish pictures in the gallery where this painting would hang.

Frame A was selected. Since the antique frame was slightly smaller than the picture, rather than alter the original a hand-carved reproduction was made, and then water-gilded, aged and distressed to match the antique finish.

The framing proposals for this portrait could only reasonably be expected to be seventeenth-century Spanish frames. However, for Dutch artists of this period two very different frame styles were simultaneously in vogue.