WASHINGTON, DC.- Eli Wilner & Company has announced new funding to support framing projects for museums and nonprofit institutions of all sizes. The funding can be used for frame restoration, historic frame replication, mirror replication, or nameplate projects. Interested institutions can apply by emailing the details of their reframing or frame restoration needs to info@eliwilner.com. No project is too small or too large.
The White House has been a beneficiary of the Eli Wilner Frame Funding Program, with 28 framing projects completed to date. These include reframing or restoring works by renowned artists such as John Singer Sargent, Frederic Church, and Norman Rockwell. These framing projects can be viewed
here.
One notable project was the reframing of George P. A. Healys The Peacemakers (1868), an oil on canvas painting measuring 47 x 62 inches. The Wilner frame is in the American 1860s style, with an acanthus leaf cove and delicately incised panel. The painting hangs in the Oval Office Dining Room, which adjoins the Oval Office itself.
The Oval Office Dining Room of the White House. The Peacemakers, framed by Eli Wilner, is shown on the wall.
The Peacemakers depicts President Lincolns meetings aboard the Union steamer River Queen on March 27th and 28th, 1865. He discussed peace terms in the final days of the Civil War with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. After Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas, and Grant's nine-month siege of Petersburg, the war's end seemed near.
Lincoln's brooding posture distinguishes him from the other men. Behind him glows a rainbow, symbolizing the prospect of long-awaited peace. While accounts of Lincoln's peace terms vary, he had memorably formulated his guiding principles in his Second Inaugural Address three weeks before: "With malice toward none; with charity for all."
Eli Wilner & Company has completed over 15,000 framing projects for private collectors, museums, and institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and 28 projects for The White House. Wilner was honored by the Historic Charleston Foundation with the Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award, for their work in historic picture frame conservation. In 2024, Eli Wilner was presented with an Iris Award for Outstanding Dealer of the Year by the Bard Graduate Center in New York City.