eastern textures

Some wonderful Eastern treasures came through the shop lately.  The first is an original painting on paper from India.  I happen to have handled a lot of Indian art in my career, mostly paintings on silk, but this one was a bit different in terms of medium, colors, and patterns.

Generally there are lots of jewel-tones and bead motifs in art from this region.  But what I found most striking about this piece was the olive neutral background and the triangle motif border.  (Those brown circle things are soft leather weights to hold the art down--it had been rolled for some time.)

The client and I arrived at this combination of mat and frame.  The mat is a very saturated olive suede.  We held the sample against the art and knew in an instant this was the thing to do.

Below is a detail where you can see the triangles and lines of the art and how the frame relates.

I didn't intend to put these two together in a post, they are from different clients, and the art from different countries, but in going through my photos, I was struck by the similarity of shape (both long horizontals), and the use of the color green as neutral.

Below is an antique embroidery from China.

The clients wanted a floating design with a raised mat and I totally agreed.  We floated the art on a pale sage green mat, and raised a slightly brighter green raw silk mat above.  This slender dark scroll motif frame finished the design beautifully.

The detail below shows the grain of the silk, which we chose to run horizontally to emphasize length.  This shot was also a test to see if my technique for raising the mat was visible. From any angle.  Nope!  (There should not be any visible framing tricks--mat should appear to be hovering magically in the air.)

Finished piece below.

I've written it several times before, but one of the great things about this profession is the variety of stuff that comes through the door.  I am so lucky to be able to see and handle items like these.  :)