We recently made improvements to the Mellon French Galleries. While I have received much positive feedback from visitors about the changes, I get the same question again and again: “What’s with that white frame?”
Glad you asked.
Although the simple white frame on Georges Seurat’s Landscape with Houses (which VMFA recently received from the Life Interest of Mrs. Paul Mellon) may seem an anachronism, it’s actually quite appropriate to the period—and particularly the artist. Seurat was partial to this type of frame, as evidenced by the frames in the background of his work The Models (or Les Poseuses) from the Barnes Foundation.
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In fact, this reproduction frame is part of an ongoing project to reframe all of the works in the Mellon French Galleries in authentic period frames. The vast majority of these frames are originals—and fine antiques in their own right—however, there is one other replica . . . but a very impressive one! Made to match the grand period salon frame, circa 1870, on one of the two Boudin seascapes in the first gallery, the reproduction is a dead ringer for the original. Can you tell which is which? I can’t!
—Mitchell Merling, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art