NEW YORK, NY.- Following the completion of the monumental re-framing of Emmanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the master framers at Eli Wilner & Company have been receiving some extraordinary design requests. Apparently the scale and complexity of accomplishing such an enormous multi-year project has inspired clients to commission some truly unique frames that may previously have seemed impossible. Here are three such examples:

The first was a massive circular, shaped and gilded cassetta-style frame with an 8 foot diameter. This was created for a painting by Gerome and was featured in the exhibition for Sotheby’s Fall 2013 19th Century Auction.

Another project, completed in early 2014, was a unique collaboration with an interior design firm who was seeking a Swedish-style concave frame for a mirror to be based on an Empire-style period frame. The interior designers provided an initial rendering and the Wilner gallery staff proceeded to do extensive research to prepare for the project, managing to find photo documentation of several frames with this unique shape. After compiling reference materials, including several Empire-style frames from their inventory that had subtle variations in ornament, they met with the client to finalize the aesthetics. The interior designers had an additional specification: the surface should only be partially gilded while certain areas were to be finished with white paint. Eli Wilner & Company created a final digital mockup with a hand-drawn profile to get the client’s final approval. When the completed framed mirror was delivered to the client, it was accompanied by a book showing behind-the-scenes shots of the making of the frame.

The third example is an urgent, time-sensitive request from a private client to create an octagon-shaped frame for a tiny and very important Old Master tondo painting. Within a few hours of the request, a well-researched proposal was created, including digital mock-ups based on period appropriate frames from the Eli Wilner & Company inventory of more than three thousand frames. This intricate hand-carved project is currently in the works and will be completed for the client’s ten day deadline.