Here we describe our professional service to frame your fine canvas prints so that they can be shown to their best advantage. There is a large selection of frames to choose from and professional framing work that we offer is explained here.

Here we describe our professional service to frame your fine canvas prints so that they can be shown to their best advantage. There is a large selection of frames to choose from and professional framing work that we offer is explained here.

The Best Frame

Once you have selected your chosen masterpiece to have it beautifully giclée-printed on canvas by us for your home or office, it's time to select one of our frames to make your choice stand out even more on the wall.

Please click here to see the big selection of different types of frames we have for your fine prints. Our expert staff are also ready to recommend to you the best frames for your chosen prints.

Picture frames, along with their mounts, protect and complement the artwork and will keep your precious canvas prints in good 

Complementing the art

Strolling through the many exhibition halls in an art museum like the Louvre will show how effectively the right frames complement the paintings on show. Some of the sizeable frames seen there, often carved in wood and gilded in gold, are really works of art in themselves.

Looking at the selection of frames we have at ArtsDot.com, you can see the same or similar designs to the frames used for the original paintings in the world's art museums.

In the long history of Western art, picture frames have traditionally been made of wood, which is still the most common material used. Other materials are also used including silver, bronze, aluminum and polystyrene plastic.

Some older picture frames have elaborate moldings which may reflect the subject matter of the artwork. Other older frames had been made of molded and gilded plaster over a plain wooden base.

Generally, molding of a picture frame has a "lip" and rabbet, to make space to hold painted canvas within the frame. The lip extends about a centimeter past the edge of the rabbet.

Glass protection

To better protect some artwork sheets of thin glass, or substitutes such as acrylate or Plexiglas, is placed on top of the surface of the prints or paintings to protect them even better.

Glass is commonly used over watercolors and other works on paper and rarely over oil paintings, except priceless ones in art museums.

The Mona Lisa has this protective glass which is even bulletproof. Just as well, as red paint was sprayed at it once in Japan and a thrown terra cotta teacup shattered against the picture-frame glass in another attack in Paris.

Further protection

Some picture-framing glass is treated with anti-reflective coating to make the glass itself virtually invisible under certain lighting. Further protection can be made for artwork exposed to direct sunlight, or harsh light such as fluorescent one. UV filtering can be added to the glass slow down the degradation of organic materials in the artwork.

To prevent the protective glass from touching the surface of the artwork, matting, usually a window of cardboard in complementary colors, is used to frame the artwork, within the picture frame.

Foam-core boards and other backing boards are used to provide support for artwork at the back of the picture frames and paper or dust covers are used to keep dust and insects out.

Stretching out the canvas

Initially your chosen canvas print of any size is mounted over a stretcher frame.

Our best-quality stretcher frames have cut curved profile and rounded edges to minimize contact with the canvas print to prevent unsightly impression marks and surface cracking.

Instead of displaying your fine canvas print within a picture frame, there is also a choice of having the print gallery-wrapped. Your print in this case is stretched over the edges of the stretcher frame and wrapped around the sides of it, so that the canvas print can be neatly shown without a frame.

Framed in this way, there is a choice of different stretcher frame thickness to show the work to the best advantage on the wall.

With larger prints we will select a thicker frame height as to give the finish product a more stunning outlook; likewise, for smaller prints it is recommended to go for a slimmer frame height.

Framing for centuries

The earliest European picture frames were found as largely unmovable frames around large religious paintings that were commissioned by the church as altarpieces or as part of the church's architecture.

During the Renaissance in 14th and 15th century, art patrons were outside the church. Wealthy patrons, such as the Medici family, could commission allegorical, devotional and portrait paintings that were framed for their estates.

Fortunately at ArtsDot.com, you don't need to be as wealthy as the Medicis to afford our very reasonably-priced frames to be expertly fitted to protect your fine art canvas prints.

Looking good in a frame

This small oil painting of Hieronymus Bosch would look even more appealing and intriguing, framed in a suitable way.

Not all that much is known about Bosch, except that he was a Dutch painter, whose real name was Jheronimus van Aken, who lived from about 1450 to 1516.

The mysterious painter left behind no letters or diaries except an oeuvre of fantastic, surrealistic and allegorical paintings that has puzzled and intrigued art lovers ever since his time.

The large and overwhelming triptych, The garden of earthly delight, is perhaps his best known work that is filled with allegorical visions of Heaven and Hell.

The Christ child seen here is sensitively painted in the same way as the figures in his larger work. Like in the rest of the 25 paintings that he created, many more questions are raised by the artist than were answered.