An Overview of the History of Matting

1917  William M. Birchall  The King's Fighting Ships  Watercolor,  painted in England Birchall was American, born in 1884,  but as a young man shipped out to England as a purser on the P&O Line.  His “hobby” was watercolor painting and he is noted for the ‘on-the-spot’ scenes in the English Channel during the war. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, precipitating the First World War, or the ‘Great War’ ( 1914-1918 ).  This same year the Panama Canal was opened. In 1917 Czar Nicholas II of Russia was assassinated and Civil War erupted ( 1917-1922 ).  By 1920, nearly all bounds of subject matter, style and attitude had been broken in the arts - Abstraction, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc..  For the first time in English history,  gold frames were out of fashion.  Frames were finished in silver and white-grey. For this reason many historians consider silver frames inappropriate on artwork of the nineteenth century and earlier. The mat is a replica of an English ‘wash line mount’ of this period.  The frame, a typical American-English drawing frame profile, is finished in white gold over dark blue clay - a non-tarnishing “silver”.

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