The wide, flat, gilded direct to oak frame on E. Boroughs Johnson, A Salvation Army Shelter, 1891 poses a number of questions.
The painting was acquired in 1892, the year after it was painted, on the advice of Hubert von Herkomer.
There is no record to date of the maker of the frame but it could be Dolman, who made two frames on paintings by Herkomer in the NGV collection, both gilded direct to oak. Johnson was a student of Herkomer c.1886.
The very broad, flat form of the frame has precedents in French frames from around the 1860’s but also the forms and finishes espoused by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, referencing the Arts and Crafts movement.
Johnson exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy which may suggest we need to consider this a Royal Academy frame.
Wide, flat frames like this appear in Melbourne and Sydney, from the late 1880’s to late 1890’s. Consider the frames on Roberts The Sunny South (1887) Louriero Spring (1891) Roberts Shearing the Rams (1888-90) Streeton The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might (1895), Davies Moonrise (1898) or Longstaff Gippsland Sunday Night (1898). They appear on paintings on display in contemporary photographs of the Victorian Artists Society, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and National Gallery of Victoria, and were more prevalent than the extant examples would suggest.
Though this frame did not appear in the NGV until 1892 it could nevertheless be regarded as a reference point for local frame makers.
An almost identical frame form is integrated into the painted surface of Howard Hodgkin Night and Day,1997-99.