07/31/2026
We wish we could claim credit for this beautiful pairing, but truthfully, the design began with pure intuition on the client's part.
While our designer was busy prepping space for the consultation, the client wandered over to one of our panels – a collection of early-to-mid-century American profiles – and almost absentmindedly lifted a single sample off the wall. He laid it down next to the painting, and both were quiet for a moment. That was it. Done.
Was it pure chance? Maybe. But there are very real reasons why this frame works so well:
Its design derives from frame styles developed by master framemaker Hermann Dudley Murphy and painter Childe Hassam in early 20th century Boston. As an artist of the American Impressionist movement, Hassam was deeply invested in how his paintings were presented, and Murphy's shop (named Carrig-Rohane, meaning "Red Cliff" in Gaelic) produced frames that reflected those ideas — restraint over excess, harmony over contrast, and an emphasis on light, color, and atmosphere.
Those principles were part of an overarching design philosophy and visual language shared by other American artists of the same time period, including the painter of this particular work, Pauline Palmer. Like Hassam and his Impressionist peers, Palmer sought to capture the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere, and frames like this were made to support those aims rather than compete with them. The result -- a frame and painting that together feel like one luminous object, expansive but contained -- is entirely by design.
Pauline Pamer (1867-1938)
Sunshine & Shadow
oil on board
26 in x 32 in
