Reverse cassetta frame
The fillets and shadows of the carved and punched ornament on this exceptionally fine Louis XIII frame are glazed with dragon's blood (a dark red vegetable glaze), suggesting a Spanish influence. This may have been done integrate the frame with the interior in which it was placed, as the color, just as in Venice at the end of the sixteenth century pierced frames were backed by silver glazed with dragon's blood to complement deep red silk wall hangings. A comparable frame, also made in southern France in the early seventeenth century, is in a private collection in London. See also 1975.1.2229.
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