'Portrait de Femme: buste' by Vincent Van Gogh

When it comes to framing the most recognisable artist in the world, only the most prestigious custom-made frame will do.

'Portrait de Femme: buste' is notable in Van Gogh's body of work for its modern female subject, as Vincent and his brother Theo discussed, highlighting her "flame red in her jet black hair." Lauded as Van Gogh's "finest painting from the Antwerp period" by The Art Newspaper, its 2019 Christie's auction marked its first availability since 1945 and public viewing in over 20 years!

For this significant event and an artwork estimated to reach $10-15 million, John Davies Framing was tasked with creating a prestige frame worthy of its subject.

How did we make it?

The creation of a luxury and period-appropriate frame involves a multi-stage process with all hands on deck. Luckily, our talented team have hundreds of years of craftsmanship between them; delivering incredible quality at speed.

First, we do a design and scale drawing.

We drew a scaled cross-section of the frame to detail each section's dimensions and how they join together. We incorporate the size of the required rebate (the inner cut-out lip of the frame that holds the artwork).

Then, we make a rough carving from lime wood.

Our talented carvers roughed out the frame's lengths from lime wood to create a basic outline. We chose lime wood for its sustainability, excellent workability, and high durability.

Now for the fun bit, hand carving.

Our skilled carvers finely carved the roughed-out lengths by hand using chisels of various shapes to achieve the precise design. For this particular frame, we carved a beautiful 'reverse leaf' pattern to enhance and match the era and style of the painting.

Next, base construction and assembly.

We constructed a base frame from planed pine wood to the specified rebate size. Lime wood pieces were then attached piece by piece, starting from the sight edge, to meet the exact dimensions needed.

Another stage of carving adjustments, just to be sure.

After assembly, we gave the frame a final check to ensure precise alignment and smoothness of all corners and edges.

Now, we apply gesso and prepare it for gilding.

Not every frame needs gilding (covering with gold), but it was essential here. Our goal was to match the opulence of Van Gogh's portrait, anticipated to fetch tens of millions at auction.

After perfecting the frame, we applied a thin gesso layer (a glue and chalk mix) to prepare it for gilding. We then sanded it smooth before adding yellow polyment and red bole layers to enrich the gold’s hue and depth.

Then, we water gild the frame with gold leaf.

Water gilding involves brushing water onto the frame to make the surface sticky, and then layering on 23.4 carat gold leaf. We meticulously tucked gold leaf into every part of the frame using a gilder’s tip, ensuring complete coverage. Then we brushed away the excess.

Did you know? We have to collect the gold leaf carefully to prevent thousands of pounds of gold being brushed onto the studio floor!

Almost done. Now, we have to distress the frame.

To give the prestige frame an aged look, we distressed and burnished it, employing techniques like wire wool rubbing and applying a toning wash. We then waxed the frame to accentuate and contrast the carvings, and applied watercolour tones to achieve a patinated appearance.

And finally, the staining and inspection.

We stained the back of the frame dark brown and let it dry before conducting a final inspection to ensure the finished appearance met our highest quality standards.

Our influence on the art world

Van Gogh is just one of the groundbreaking and influential artists we have framed. Our influence in framing masterpieces stretches to Van Gogh, Magritte, Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, and more.

Find out more about these prestige frames and how they were made in our Reframing Masterpieces series.

Find out more about our story here.