'Summer has gone on swallows' wings'
(c. 1890)

• Frank WALTON

The label on the reverse identifies Bourlet as the frame maker.¹ The frame is thought to be the first framing of the painting. Though simple in design, it is an elegant rendering of the basic Carlo Maratta form. The overall matte finish tells as much about the cost of the frame as it does about the aesthetic intention. In the mid- 1950s, Bourlet was considered for the re-framing of Tiepolo’s Banquet of Cleopatra. The work was given to F. A. Pollak despite being regarded as the more expensive of the two companies.²

Notes

1 The company, established in 1828, continues to trade to the present day. In 1899 it had acquired Smith and Uppard (see entries for this firm) who had previously taken over W. A. Smith. (Jacob Simon, The Art of the Picture Frame, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1996, p. 134.) In 1872 W. A. Smith had taken over Joseph Green, frame maker to Rosetti, Brown, Millais & Holman Hunt (Mitchell & Roberts, A History of European Picture Frames, p. 69.) Another frame by Bourlet is found on David Wynfield’s Death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 1871, (p.307.12-1), acquired in 1881 and another on Edwin Edwards' Southwold, Suffolk, c.1875, (241-2).

2 See correspondence in Tiepolo conservation files, NGV.

The basic frame is machined from a large timber section. It carries a run of composition ornament along the back edge, a line of pea and sausage near the leading edge and a further line of centred and banded leaves toward the sight edge. The basic frame is mitred at the corners and re-enforced on the reverse with blocks. The face of the mitre in the inner cove is covered at each corner with a cast composition shell, which is nailed in place. The whole surface is water gilded.

Though a file note says the frame was restored in 1982, it appears to be in original condition.