Gold picture frames

Gold has been the default frame finish for four hundred years, for a practical reason as much as a decorative one: it reflects light back into the artwork without adding a colour of its own. Modern gold frames span everything from genuinely gilded reproductions of period mouldings to matte gold paint on MDF, and the difference in price is a factor of fifty.

The finishes, from best to cheapest

Water gilding

The traditional method, and the finest. Layers of gesso are built up over the moulding and sanded smooth. A coloured clay bole — traditionally red, sometimes yellow or grey — is applied over the gesso. Gold leaf, hammered to a few microns thick, is laid onto the wetted bole, where surface tension pulls it down.

Once dry, it can be burnished with an agate stone to a genuine mirror finish. Water gilding is the only technique that produces that depth, and it is the reason antique frames have a quality modern paint cannot reproduce.

It is labour-intensive, skilled, and expensive.

Oil gilding

Leaf laid onto an oil-based size rather than a clay bole. It cannot be burnished, so it produces a softer, matte finish. It is more durable than water gilding and works on surfaces that water gilding cannot handle.

Frequently the two are combined on one frame: burnished water gilding on the raised elements, matte oil gilding in the recesses, which produces contrast between highlight and shadow.

Imitation leaf

Sheets of brass or aluminium alloy rather than gold, applied by the same methods. Visually convincing when new and much cheaper. The catch is that base metals tarnish — imitation gold leaf darkens and can develop a greenish cast over years unless it is sealed under lacquer, and the lacquer itself yellows.

Bronze powder and metallic paint

Powdered metal in a binder, brushed or sprayed. This is what most inexpensive gold frames are. It never has the depth of leaf because it has no reflective continuity — it is a scattering of particles rather than a surface. It also tarnishes.

Modern metallic paints have improved considerably, and a well-applied paint over a red-brown base coat looks convincing at normal viewing distance.

Gold-toned metal and foil-wrapped

Aluminium or steel with a gold-anodised or coated finish, and MDF wrapped in printed gold foil. Both are entirely modern products with no pretension to gilding, and for a flat contemporary profile they look perfectly good and cost very little.

Telling real gilding from imitation

Look for the leaf joins. Gold leaf comes in squares of about 3.4 inches. Applied to a moulding, the squares overlap slightly and the joins are usually faintly visible as a grid under raking light. Sprayed or painted finishes have no such structure.

Look for tarnish. Real gold does not tarnish, ever. Darkening, greening, or a dull brown cast means base metal — imitation leaf or bronze powder.

Look at the wear. On genuine water gilding, worn edges reveal the red clay bole beneath, which is a distinctive warm terracotta. On painted frames, wear reveals whatever the base coat was, usually white or grey.

Look at the recesses. Gilding is applied by hand and tends to be slightly less perfect in deep recesses. Sprayed finishes are uniformly even everywhere, which is itself a tell.

What artwork gold suits

Works well with: oil paintings, especially anything before about 1900; academic and classical work; warm-toned photographs, sepia and platinum prints; botanical and natural history prints; anything with gold, ochre or warm brown already in the image.

Works badly with: cool-toned contemporary photography; high-contrast black and white, where gold introduces a warmth that fights the image; graphic and typographic work; anything where the artwork is already visually busy, since ornate gold competes for attention.

The reliable exception: a narrow, flat, matte gold profile — no ornament, half an inch to an inch wide — works with almost anything, including work that a wide gilt frame would destroy. It is currently one of the most common gallery framing choices for contemporary photography.

Ornate versus plain

The distinction matters more than the colour.

Ornate gold — carved or composition ornament, swept corners, deep profiles — belongs with period artwork and in rooms with architectural detail of their own. In a plain modern room it reads as costume.

Plain gold — flat, scoop or simple cove profiles with no ornament — is contemporary, versatile and hard to get wrong. Most of the gold framing that looks current is in this category.

If you are choosing a gold frame and are not certain, choose plain and narrow.

Matting with gold

The mat sits between the frame and the artwork and has to work with both.

Off-white or warm cream is the safe answer. It shares the frame's warmth and does not compete.

Bright white is the common mistake. Against gold, a cool white looks bluish and makes the gold look yellow rather than golden. The two fight quietly and the result looks slightly off without an obvious reason.

A thin gold or ochre inner mat in a double mat is an effective detail — it echoes the frame at the artwork's edge and ties the two together across the width of the outer mat.

Black mats with gold frames work only for high-contrast graphic work and are otherwise heavy.

Caring for a gilded frame

The single most important rule: do not clean gilding with anything wet.

Water dissolves the animal glue in the gesso and lifts the bole, taking the gold with it. Solvents strip both. Commercial metal polish removes the gold entirely.

Correct care is a soft, dry, natural-bristle brush — a clean makeup brush works — used gently to lift dust from the recesses. That is all a genuinely gilded frame should ever receive.

Modern painted or foil-wrapped gold frames are far more robust and tolerate a barely damp cloth, though they should still be dried immediately.

Restoring and touching up

Losses in gilding — chips, worn corners, missing composition ornament — are conservation work and can be genuinely expensive on a valuable frame. For a decorative frame, gilding wax rubbed sparingly into the loss and buffed is a quick and surprisingly convincing repair.

For a frame you want to make gold from scratch: base coat in a red-brown, then gilding wax or metallic paint applied unevenly so the base shows at the edges and in the recesses. That deliberate imperfection is what makes it read as gold rather than as gold paint. Vintage and antique frames covers repair of older gesso and composition work in more detail.