A winter evening
1897

• Frederick McCUBBIN

The maker is identified by an entry in the Thallon ledger for October 9, 1897. McCubbin, Oct 9 1 frame 5ft. x 4ft. (with a profile sketch) £5-10. The frame is typical of a small group of frames, which McCubbin appears to have preferred for his pictures.² It is one of three frames on McCubbin paintings in the collection that are thought to be original, the others being: Autumn morning South Yarra (3164-4) and The Pioneer (253-2). The frame gives the painting an imposing presence. It is one of a group that were removed from Australian paintings and sold at auction in 1941. It was found at the monastery of The Benedictine Community of New Norcia Inc. in Western Australia in 1998 and, after restoration, was returned to the painting in 2000.

Notes

1 The restoration was carried out by Sandra Cockburn.

2 A frame very similar to this one is found on The Last of Summer (1898) by Walter Withers, in the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.

The frame is made up from a cast plaster torus of imbricated oak on a wooden chassis, with a sanded flat. The torus is hollow and held in place with long nails and animal glue. The casts repeat at intervals of 11 ins, 12 ins. and 13 ins. The cross-banding of the torus is cast in place, as with the torus of ‘The purple noon’s transparent might’, (33-2) suggesting it was cast from a finished frame. The corners of the chassis are mitred, glued and nailed. They are re-enforced from behind with flat boards nailed across the mitre. The sloping flat is covered with fine sand and finished in patinated silver leaf on a white ground. The working edge is painted black and a dark patination continues on to the ornament of the back edge. Despite the current appearance of the frame, Thallon’s entry annotates the flat as light bronze.

Found with the chassis intact but the bulk of the leading edge ornament lost. The frame was extensively restored in 2000.¹