Is A Picture Really Worth A 1,000 Words?

Or is Seeing Believing?

You've heard the old saying; a picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of our frames, however, you have to see them to appreciate their beauty. It is challenging to capture, in a photograph, the glow of a hand-crafted frame with 23k gold leaf. The glorious halo it creates around artwork or mirrors is truly radiant. You have to see it to believe it.

The green and red lights partially reflect the sunlight when interacting with the gold leaf. The gold tends to absorb the blue light. Therefore, we see the combination of the reflected green and red light, which gives the classic golden yellow color accentuated in natural sunlight.

During a recent presentation, a participant commented, "Wow, I've looked at the frames on your website but couldn't appreciate how beautiful they were until I saw them in person." Another added, "the frames are much heavier than I anticipated."

The traditional water gilding technique allows our artisans to apply the gold leaf onto a soft clay ground substrate prepared with a natural glue, such as Rabbit Skin Glue. The advantage of water gilding is the gold can be burnished to a high gloss finish after it has been applied to the colored clay.

In the image below, you can see traces of the black clay under the gold leaf. The frame panel was painted to match the fabrics that an interior designer selected.

The gold leaf comes in various shades depending upon the amount of gold content. Check out our previous blog post, "To Be (gold leaf) or Not To Be (gold leaf)? That Is The Question!" for more information.

Gold is highly reflective of heat and light. An astronaut's visor on their helmet has a very thin coating of gold. It's so thin they can see through the visor, yet the glare and heat from the sun are reflected.