The frame is in the English rococo style, with swept and pierced edges, and is representative of the nineteenth-century manufacture of frames, which were entirely carved in timber in the eighteenth century. The frame is very close in form to the one illustrated in Mitchell and Roberts, A History of European Picture Frames, p. 64, illustration 46b, giving some credibility to the source of the style. In the manner of the frame it emulates it does not have a slip.1 A very similar frame to this appears on Phillip Wilson Steer's Distant view of Richmond, Yorkshire, 1903, (405-4) which suggests the maker might also be Chapman.
Notes.
1 A number of carved eighteenth-century English rococo frames appear in the collection, on Thomas Gainsborough’s A seapiece, a calm (1840-4); Arthur Devis’ The Clavey family in their garden at Hampstead (E1-1976); Richard Wilson’s Llyn Peris and Dolbadarn Castle (2055-4); Edward Haytley’s The Brockman family at Beachborough (1246-5A and 1246-5B), and Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Lady Frances Finch (3356a-4).