This small frame was probably carved in Paris sometime during the last years of the 17th century or the early 18th century. The proportions of the opening and the fact that the frame has no cartouches on the smaller sides suggest that it was made for a horizontal painting, perhaps a landscape. The quality of the carving is very high, especially in the separately conceived, overlapping acanthus leaves that seem to grow over the edge of the frame toward the central opening. Like many frames produced during this period, this one is thickest and most substantial at the outside, creating a certain bulk for the framed object and thereby giving it the status of furniture or architecture when hung. It could certainly have been carved to be placed in the private chamber of a wealthy collector whose taste ran to small-scale works.

Excerpt from

Dallas Museum of Art, Decorative Arts Highlights from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection (Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 66.