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Framing a Renoir: Rolled, Stretched or Framed

Rolled, stretched, or framed. The choice is mostly about what you want to do at the other end, and only then about looks.

The three ways it can arrive

Rolled; the canvas alone, in a tube. Cheapest to ship, safest over long distances, and it assumes you will take it to a framer. Choose it if you have a framer, or if the piece is large.

Stretched; mounted on a wooden stretcher, ready to hang as it is. The modern gallery look: no frame, the image running to the edge. It suits the southern landscapes and the flower pieces, and it suits contemporary rooms.

Framed; stretched and framed here, ready to hang out of the box. It costs more and it ships heavier, but the figure paintings genuinely want it.

Why the figure paintings want a frame

Renoir’s people are painted in a shallow, crowded space, and the edge of the canvas is where that space stops. Without a frame the eye keeps going, and the scene loses its containment; a boating party bleeding into a white wall looks unfinished rather than modern. A frame gives it a window to sit inside. The landscapes and the flowers have no such problem.

Choosing the moulding

His palette is built on warm rose, coral, cream and gold, so the frame is easy to get wrong in one specific way: a bright gold moulding against a Renoir is gold on gold, and the painting loses its glow. What works, in rough order of safety:

  • Warm dark wood; walnut or a deep stained oak. It reads as period without pastiche and it lets the flesh tones come forward. The safest single choice for the dance halls and boating parties.
  • Antiqued or muted gold; gold that has been knocked back, not bright leaf. Right for the theatre boxes and the portraits, where a little formality suits the subject.
  • Plain black or near-black; modern, and better than it sounds: it cools the warmth just enough and puts the colour in relief. Good in a contemporary room.
  • White or off-white; only with the flower pieces and the southern landscapes. Against a crowd scene it looks thin.

Width, and a caution

Let the frame be generous but not competitive: on a 30-inch canvas a moulding of roughly 5 to 8 cm sits comfortably. Wider than that and you are framing the frame. And avoid heavily carved ornate mouldings unless the room already carries that language; on a modern wall they read as costume rather than as period.

Glass

Canvas is not framed under glass, and should not be. If you have ordered a paper print instead, use museum glass in a bright room; ordinary glass will mirror the window straight back at you and you will never see the painting.