A Timeless Guide to Framing

There's a particular kind of heartbreak in watching a beautiful painting get hung in a frame that fights it. Wrong tone, wrong weight, mat too thin or missing entirely... and suddenly a piece that should anchor a room ends up almost apologising for itself. Framing isn't packaging. It's the last brushstroke, arguably one of the most important, and ironically one that buyers and artists alike rarely respect. 

If you've just brought home a 19th-century landscape, an Impressionist-adjacent oil, or a delicate watercolour, here are some key framing considerations to keep in mind

Start with the Medium

The single biggest mistake people make is picking a frame because it matches their sofa or Pinterest mood board. Start with what's actually on the wall instead.

Oils and acrylics were made to be seen without a barrier. Original paintings on canvas can typically go unglazed, which means no glass, because the paint has dried to a hard film that doesn't need protecting from the air the way paper does. This is also why an oil painting can often skip the mat altogether. The canvas itself has enough presence and texture to hold the eye without a paper border doing the work for it. A weightier, more traditional moulding, such as walnut, mahogany or gilt, tends to suit these pieces, echoing the density of the paint itself.

Works on paper are a different animal entirely. Watercolours, gouaches, drawings, pastels, and prints are fragile, and should always sit behind glass (assuming the intention is to archive the piece, and make it long-lasting). But that glass can't touch the paper directly as condensation and moisture would eventually cause "foxing," i.e. those reddish-brown stains that plague older works on paper. That's what the mat is for. The mat holds the glass away from the surface so the paper can breathe.

It's also worth noting that you should aim to let the medium suggest the material. Organic materials such as oil, charcoal or pastel tend to sit comfortably in organic frame materials like walnut, mahogany, birch.Something more graphic or contemporary, like a digital print, often suits a cleaner metal frame instead. This isn't a hard rule, of course, and breaking it deliberately (a thin chrome frame around a traditional oil, say) can be a way of making a period piece feel current.

Speaking of Mat-boards...

A mat (or "mount," if you're using the British term — the French call it a passepartout) isn't just decorative. It's existence is justified structurally as it creates the air gap that protects paper-based works from moisture damage, and it gives the piece visual breathing room before the frame closes in.

There's an unwritten formula worth knowing: the less traditional or the smaller the piece, the bigger the mat should be.

A grand oil battle scene doesn't need convincing as it's earned its place on the wall through sheer presence. But a small, delicate sketch or a quiet vintage landscape can benefit from a generous mat that gives it room to command attention. 

A good baseline width to start from is around 5cm (2.5 inches) all around, though many framers will suggest going wider on the bottom edge. This is known as "bottom weighting" and is done since a mat with equal margins can visually appear to be sinking. 

Mat quality is also important. This genuinely matters for anything you intend to keep. Budget mat boards are made from acidic wood pulp that will yellow and can leach acid directly into your artwork over time. This is a process called "acid migration" that causes the same brown staining as foxing. For anything with real age or value, ask for a conservation-grade or "whitecore" mount at minimum, and cotton rag or "museumcore" for your most treasured pieces. It costs more upfront. It's considerably cheaper than restoring a stained 1880s landscape later.

Design Considerations

An older painting frequently looks most at home in a frame with some age or ornamentation to it, while a stripped-back contemporary moulding can make a period piece look oddly stranded. That said, plenty of collectors love the tension of an ornate 19th-century landscape in a very plain, modern frame. Whilst it's a legitimate choice, it is also a bolder one.

On mat-boards, the frame and mat should never be exactly the same width, and most framers suggest the mat be the wider of the two. Equal widths tend to look like an accident rather than a decision.

If your mat has a decorative element, like a V-groove bevel, a gilded slip or a stepped double-mat, pair it with a simpler frame. Two elaborate elements fighting each other rarely reads as luxurious, and is often interpreted as busy.

For works on paper with a particularly beautiful deckled or textured edge, such as handmade paper, for instance, consider asking your framer to "float" the piece on top of the mat rather than tucking it behind a cut aperture. This creates a small shadow beneath the work and lets the full sheet, edges included, remain visible. It's a lovely option for anything where the paper itself is part of the story.

Glass Protection (If Needed)

If you're framing a work on paper, the glazing options break down roughly like this:

• Standard/float glass: the cheapest option, with a faint greenish cast and no UV protection. Fine for something low-stakes; not what you want over a piece with real pigment or age.
• UV-blocking or conservation glass: filters out around 99% of UV rays, which matters enormously for anything with watercolour, pastel, or coloured pencil, since these fade far more readily than oil or acrylic.
• Museum glass: combines UV protection with an anti-reflective coating, so the piece is protected and actually visible without glare. The gold standard, and priced accordingly.

The Bottom Line

A frame should feel inevitable in retrospect, as if the piece couldn't have looked right any other way. That takes a bit more thought than grabbing whatever's on sale at a big-box shop, but it's not complicated once you know what each choice is actually doing. The mat protects and elevates, the glass protects and clarifies, and the frame either agrees with the piece or argues with it. Get a good framer, bring a photo of the room if you can, and don't be afraid to ask questions about materials. A framer who can't tell you what their mat board is made of probably isn't the one you want handling a piece you plan to keep.