NEW YORK, NY.- Eli Wilner & Company was founded in 1983. The company has designed and crafted over 10,000 projects for private collectors, museums, and institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the historically-appropriate framing of 28 projects for The White House. The company’s collection of antique frames is now valued at over $100 million.

In one of the largest framing projects in the country, Eli Wilner & Company just completed the task of recreating the hand-carved and gilded original frame for the famous painting ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’. This 21 foot wide by 12 foot tall, 3000 pound frame was created by analyzing a photo of the original frame taken by Matthew Brady in 1864 and is considered the most complex, ornate and detailed frame in American frame making history.

The Eli Wilner Internship Program is a two-month program that will allow participants to have a first-hand experience of frame restoration, conservation and replication and to gain knowledge and insight into the world of period frames. Each 2-month internship term will not include more than four interns, allowing for close interaction between students and craftspeople and instructors.

Combining practical experience in the studio with lectures at the gallery and museum visits that are lead by skilled staff members, the program will offer a comprehensive experience of (American) frame history and care.

A typical week consists of 2 days a week in the studio and a third day in the Manhattan gallery or at an area museum. At the studio, participants will work side-by-side with staff active in all aspects of frame restoration and replication: woodworkers, mold-makers, carvers, gilders and finishers.

As the knowledge of fabrication methods and materials will foster greater levels of understanding and acumen, the opportunity to learn about water-gilding, in particular, will greatly add to the connoisseurship and discernment of gilded wood surfaces of all kinds.

During the 2-month period participants will have an opportunity to make a frame of their own to keep at the completion of the internship. The cost of the internship is $10,000.