The Sansovino Frame

Italian, Venice, circa 1575, carved pine Sansovino frame, coloured to imitate walnut, with gilded highlights & volutes infilled with flutes, & centre rosettes. (Frame ref: 13046)

Copyright Arnold Wiggins & Sons

The Sansovino frame is a distinctive Venetian pattern of frame that takes its name from the architect and sculptor Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570) who worked in Venice from 1527 until his death.

The characteristics of the Sansovino frame are the intertwining scrolls and volutes and the contrast of the rich dark brown colour of the walnut, or soft-wood coloured to appear as walnut, and the gilded highlights – an effect called lumeggiato in oro. The frame pattern on more elaborate frames may be further enriched with swags of fruit, putti, grotesque masks and flanked by ‘terms’, often female.

EXAMPLES OF PAINTINGS FRAMED IN SANSOVINO FRAMES

Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570), Madonna and Child, polychromed and gilt cartapesta. Kimbell Art Museum, Texas.

Giovanni Contarini, Saint Ambrogius expels the Aryans. Cappella dei Milanesi, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice

Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Lorenzo Lenzi. Sforza Castle, Milan