The studio shrine
(c. 1910)

• Bernard HALL

One of the frames made for Bernard Hall by the Thallon company in its later years, under the direction of Ted Burman and using the Thallon label. All of the frames made for Hall have a distinct character and appear to have been selected specifically for the paintings they house.² This one is in the manner of seventeenth- century Spanish frames. Hall was director of the NGV from 1892 to 1935. He was adviser to the Felton Bequest in 1934/35.

Notes

1 The 24 Market Lane address first appears in 1927. Hilary Maddocks, ‘Picture Framemakers in Melbourne c. 1860–1930’ in vol. 1, Frames, Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999.

John Thalon died in 1918. His wife Jane maintained the business with Thallon’s foreman, Ted Burman, as manager. Somewhere between 1928 and 1931 Jane Thallon gave the business to Ted Burman who continued to run it under the name of John Thallon, through to the 1960s. (Claire Newhouse, ‘John Thallon 1848–1918’ in Melbourne Journal of Technical Studies in Art, University of Melbourne Conservation Service, 1999, pp. 81–98.)

2 In this instance, a near identical frame, also by this company, lacking only the centre ornaments, appears on A. M. E. Bale’s On guard (tulips), c. 1931, (4577-5), (this information courtesy of Melanie Carlisle) and another formerly on (British School) Portrait of a lady in rich attire (4694-3) which was reframed in 2011.

The frame consists of moulded composition corner ornaments on a wooden chassis. The ornaments are oil gilded, the reserves are painted black.

Good original condition throughout.