MAKING A FRAME FOR A LARGE PHOTOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTION
This photograph is 60 inches long by 16 inches wide. It is a copy in brown tones of a classic painting by Otto Kneille—The Education of Athenian Youth, the original of which hangs in the Royal Gymnasium in Berlin. It represents a spacious hall or court showing three of the large marble columns and a massive seat in which an old man reclines while another old man is expounding some doctrine to him and to a group of younger men gathered around. In the centre of the scene a boy lies flat upon the pavement reading a manuscript. Near him several youths under the direction of a master, are contending in feats of strength. The composition is one that suggests weight and power. It may appropriately hang in the hall or in the library over a wide, low bookcase.
A picture of this character needs no mat and must have a wide, heavy frame. The stock chosen was oak, 4 inches wide, 11⁄2 inches thick, and flat faced. The size and weight of such a frame, including the glass, demand firmness of construction as the first consideration. The stock is too wide for successful mitring because shrinking would naturally open and weaken such joints. It was therefore framed together with mortise and tenon joints, well glued. A dowelled joint might have sufficed, but it would not have the same strength. The mortises were cut in the vertical ends and the tenons were left on the long horizontal pieces. This was in conformity with the usual method of joining framework—for example, door frames, window frames, panel frames, and other interior woodwork; for the greatest possible length is invariably given to the vertical parts.
The frame was given a dark brown finish, repeating the darkest tones of the picture. Long screw eyes were fastened to the back 2 inches from the top, so that the picture might hang nearly flat against the wall. A strong braided wire about 75 inches long was run through the eyes and securely looped at each end, so that a little more than an inch of wire on each side passed through the eyes. Since the picture was to have a prominent place on a certain wall, two nails 66 inches apart allowing for the two widths of the frame as well as for the length of the picture were driven into this wall, and the heavy photograph was easily hung and balanced without exposing the wire to view.