NEW YORK, NY.- As a part of their gifting program, Eli Wilner and Company created a handcrafted replica frame for a Mary Cassatt painting, Portrait of Madame X Dressed for the Matinée, 1822-78, in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art.

The Cassatt painting was selected to be reframed by John Coffey, the Deputy Director for Collections and Research and Curator of American and Modern Art at the NCMA. Mr. Coffey had chosen Portrait of Madame X because the artwork represented both an important painting in the museum’s collection and a focal point for any gallery within which it might be displayed. Together with Eli Wilner and Company, Mr. Coffey determined that they should replicate a Degas frame for this project because of this historic importance of Degas and Cassatt’s frequent artistic exchange.

The two artists were colleagues who often collaborated, and Cassatt had been the subject of several of Degas’ paintings. Eli Wilner and Company’s historians researched numerous examples of Degas frames for artworks contemporaneous to Cassatt’s. Ultimately, the frame created by Eli Wilner and Company was a carved and gilded replica of the frame on the Degas painting, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877, which is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . The frame features rows of intricately carved ornament in ribbon, lambs tongue and bead reel patterns.

Eli Wilner and Company provided the NCMA with digital mock-ups of the frame on the artwork, but also created a sample for the museum to review. It was crucial to produce a tangible preview for this project to determine the best color option for the frame. The sample consisted of a hand carved length of the entire profile of the Degas frame, exhibiting three subtle gilded variations. Once the gilding was selected by the museum, Eli Wilner and Company’s master gilders and finishers worked with direct reference to an identical, reciprocal sample to expedite the production process.

Eli Wilner and Company was proud to have included the Cassatt painting among their many worthy gifting projects and the framed painting is now on view at the NCMA. The frame is the joint gift of Charlotte Hanes and Eli Wilner and Company in memory of Philip R. Hanes Jr.

The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the institution one of the premier art museums in the South. The Museum’s collection provides educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The 164-acre Museum Park showcases the connection between art and nature through site-specific works of environmental art. The Museum offers changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts.

The Museum opened West Building, home to the permanent collection, in 2010. The North Carolina Museum of Art, Lawrence J. Wheeler, director, is located at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh. It is the art museum of the State of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, governor, and an agency of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Susi Hamilton, secretary.

Eli Wilner and Company specializes in European and American period frames and frame restoration, boasting an inventory of over 3,500 frames spanning the 15th century to the present. For over 40 years, Eli Wilner and Company has been entrusted with historically appropriate framing of over 15,000 artworks for museums and private collectors.