Frame

The picture frame is now so ubiquitous that one forgets that, like all familiar forms, it was an invention. Although frames were originally conceived to protect the picture physically and enhance it aesthetically, their invention led gradually to the creation of a separate type of craft associated more often with furniture making than with the creation of pictures themselves.

This frame, made during the second half of the 17th century, has its greatest thickness along the outside and makes its most exuberant decorative gestures at the midpoints of each side.

**Excerpt from**

* Dallas Museum of Art. Decorative Arts Highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 67.
* Dallas Museum of Art. Decorative Arts Highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 62.