Swept frame
Unknown Artist
ca. 1755
Medium
Oak lower moldings and feather keys; lime upper moldings.
Dimensions
Overall: 4 1/2 × 51 9/16 in. (11.5 × 131 cm) Sight: 31 5/8 × 39 1/2 in. (80.4 × 100.4 cm) Rabbet: 33 1/16 × 41 1/8 in. (84 × 104.5 cm)
Classification
Frames
Culture
French
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.2251
Art Historical Context
Step into the opulent world of 18th-century French interiors with this exquisite *Swept frame*, crafted around 1755 by an unknown. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Robert Lehman Collection, this exemplifies the Rococo style's playful elegance, characterized by its sinuous, S-shaped "swept" contours that evoke movement and asymmetry. Designed to encase a painting of substantial size—offering a sight window of about 31⅝ × 39½ inches—it would have adorned a canvas in a lavish salon, where frames were as much a statement of taste as the artwork they held. Masterfully constructed, the fr...