Louis XV- (1723-1774)

The age of Louis XV was marked by vice and immorality, but because this was covered by a cloak of refinement, art continued to progress. Many knowledgeable frame makers consider the Parisian, carved, Louis XV frames the ultimate in sophisticated design and perfected craft.
The Louis XV ogee-sectioned frames had three principal variants. The first and most economical was either completely plain or had gadrooning on the top rail and a leaf-tip sight edge. This was popular from the 1720's to the 1740's as a standard frame for portraits, pastels and still-lifes. The second, more luxurious version embellished the corners with richly carved cartouches, often to give more prominence and balance to larger compositions. In the third, frequently produced variant, the frame was surmounted by a single central cartouche known as a fronton, generally based on a cabochon or shell, flanked by pierced foliate scrolls and flowers. Such frames appeared on domestic or court portraits, pastels or oils.

Swept frames, the silhouettes of which were composed of a series of curves, have become the most popular and characteristic forms of the Louis XV/Rococo period. The sophistication and complexity of their design and execution ensured that many such frames were seen as works of art in their own right; they were among the greatest creations of the decorative arts, complimenting the finest furnishings.
The hallmark of Louis XV style frames are the predominance of these curved lines and an abundance of naturalistic carving that overwhelms rectangular boundaries. The curved or swept sides so common in these frames are simply an amplification of the foliate C-scrolls present in French frames since the Louis XIV style.
This Rococo movement was a symptom of the current fashion index, now thoroughly established, for creating an interior in which even the smallest object should be designed as a significant part of the whole. Because of this fashion, the picture frame acquired a status closer to its earlier heyday on the medieval altarpiece, when artist, carver and gilder were valued at the same level and all added their signatures to a major work.

With the flowering of the Rococo in the 1730's, the distinction between picture and frame became blurred. As integrated schemes of delicately scrolled and festooned paneling were devised, in a complex dance of pier and door, mirror, trumeau and overdoor, the room itself became the frame for decorative painted pastorals, which merged into the carved flowers and trophies that surrounded them. These were expensive works; the paneling of a room was charged not only by the panel or frame but also by the elements of each. Likewise, the cost of a picture frame was related to the complexity of the moulding; sometimes parallel runs of ornaments were charged for separately, while additional decorations, such as center or corner cartouches, were individually priced. It is therefore not surprising that attempts were made to reduce costs by replacing carved wood with molded composition. In 1722, frames purchased as wooden from the framemaker André Tramblin and his son-in-law Pierre Delaunay were found to be of composition, and a case ensued in the criminal courts of Paris. The court decided that ouvrages de composition were legal products but must be labeled accordingly. Though reluctantly accepted by the master carvers, legality brought acceptance and by mid-century Delaunay's compo frames were being recommended to aristocratic patrons.