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19th Century Picture Frames

We collected under the category of 19th century picture frames a group of representative models. They consist of a miscellanea of styles because contrarily to what happened in previous eras, the 1800s is full of transitional trends.

We divided the entire body of the century into two parts. During the first 50 years, there have been four styles. They are, in order: Empire, Charles X, Louis Philipe, and Napoleon the III styles. Once again we realize the importance of France concerning European art. In fact, the first syle is related to Napoleon, and the following three are French kings.

In the second half of the 1800s appeared so many artistic movements that it’s hard to insert them into categories. It would be a long work to collect each trend sample of 19th century picture frames. For this reason, we have gathered them under the label of Eclectic frames.

19th Century Frames before eclectic trends

The Empire style has been the first style of the 1800s. After Neclassicism (1780), it manifested itself by specific traits in the field of frames. A profile significantly high on the outer edge and a very shallow one on the inner part. Follow the link to check our Empire picture frames.

Reproduction #047 is a good example of the Empire style. If we look at it carefully, we’ll easily notice the profile shape discussed in the previous section. Since 1805, Empire arts developed in France under Napoleon’s reign and spread out Europe until 1830, where a new art trend called Carlo X started over. One must be an antique expert to be able to tell apart the two stylistic movements. In fact, they differ for very little things. For example the color of the wood. The 19th century picture frames realized in Carlo X style have clear woods.

Louis Philippe and Napoleon the III styles are very similar as well. With them begin the process of revisiting past art elements quite arbitrarily. In other words, from 1840, the revisitation isn’t anymore derived by a strict dogmatic approach. Therefore since there, craftsmen mix up past elements with too much of a freedom.

Even though Louis Philippe and Napoleon the III frames start collecting too many elements from the past, they do following a certain pattern. So it’s still easy to classify them under specific categories. On the contrary, the models of the second half of the 1800s, are so mixed up with past styles that they lost any organic pattern.

19th Century Frames after eclectic trends

In this section, we will mostly focus on the Eclectic style and the way it developed. Craftsmen got inspired from Gothic to Empire styles and everything in between for their new artistic creations. That vast time to source from gives birth to a huge stylistic variety of late 19th century frames. Thus, in the same model one recognizes several types of style decorations.

For instance, our reproduction #041 contains ornates of Roman Baroque frames on the inner edge and of Louis XVI ornate on the outer one. Also, all decorations lay on top of a typical early 17th-century profile frame. For this reason, cod. 041 is the perfect example of Eclectic art.

Even our cod. 065 is a very good example of miscellanea. First, the corners on the wooden mat “centina” – the round inner part – derives from Neoclassicism. Second, the outer frame has a typical Empire profile shape with a wide polished curve in the middle.