The frame is an English rendering of the Italian cassetta form, which became popular in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It was popularised in Melbourne by the framer John Thallon and is found on paintings by Melbourne painters of the 1880s and 1890s. The construction here uses thick sections of timber, rather than thin veneers, to create the base of oak to carry the gilding which leads to a more stable decorative system. If, as seems likely, the frame has been cut down to fit the painting, we are left to ponder whether it is a recycling by Longstaff or another party.