A fine frame

Description:

Berlin, around 1820/30, after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
86,5 x 107,8 cm/ 80 x 157 cm
Softwood, lead, gilded. Wave profile with cymation and typical palmette motifs in the corners.
The type of "museum frame of profile number 1" was created in connection with the planning of the Neues Museum, as it was known at the time. The art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen was appointed to Berlin in 1823 to furnish the building and catalogue the paintings. He travelled to Italy with Karl Friedrich Schinkel
in 1824, where they both drew inspiration for a uniform framing of the paintings. The example shown here is the largest frame designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Because of his preference for panorama-like pictures, Schinkel also used extreme horizontal formats. As his mouldings were not aligned with ornamentation, the frame allows for both vertical and horizontal mounting. The painting for which this frame was created is an adoration scene by an Italian master of the 17th century, inv. no. I.200.
Important private collection Rhineland, acquired at Lempertz, 03.05.2017, lot 438
Literature: A very äsimilar frame for a wall mirror in cat. Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Möbel und Interieur, München-Berlin 2002, no. 37. S.a. Spindler, Bilderrahmen des Klassizismus und der Romantik, München 2007, p. 145, fig. 14. cf. v. Roenne, An architect frames pictures. Karl Friedrich Schinkel und die Berliner Gemäldegalerie, München-Berlin 2007, fig. 18 - Retouched gilding, slightly chipped