Built to last for generations, our frames are beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. Every frame is handmade in our Somerset studio from ethically sourced materials, natural paints and finishes.

Sharing the
Excitement
of discovery

handling images in the Drawing Matter archive. Photo by Dave Watts.

Credit: Dave Watt

Collections

The imagery we work with doesn’t have to be museum worthy: only interesting, visually appealing and deserving of a wider audience. We hope to inspire future collectors and to share the excitement of discovery with our customers.

Our passion is bringing the story behind the artworks and the people who collect them to life. Many of the works in our Collections have historic or sentimental value and we love hearing what drew a collector to a particular piece. We believe that the originals are in their best home, where they should rightly stay and be protected – but that doesn’t mean a wider audience cannot experience and enjoy the essence of them.

Hand-made in our
Somerset studio

Framemaking tools, and picture frame design plans.

Craft

We source, print, frame and package our products ourselves, meaning we have ultimate quality control over every stage of production from digitisation through to printing, framing and packaging. Built to last for generations, every frame is handmade in our Somerset studio from ethically sourced materials, natural paints and finishes.

Capturing the soul of a piece is an essential part of our practice. If a print is taken from a page in a sketchbook, we will try to replicate the tactility of that page. We experiment with materials and printing techniques in order to align as closely as we can to the feel of the original.

 At Mount, each piece is given a new lease of life. Reworked into limited and open edition runs, our hand-crafted frames and mounts are designed uniquely to best compliment each print. We consider the frame to be as integral to the design as the print, therefore we sell each piece as a finished product.

Material Library

Non-Obeche timbers

Unlike almost every standard picture frame, none of our frames contain obeche. Obeche comes from tropical forests, it’s cheap and it has an even, indistinct grain. This timber may be logged legally, but it’s being taken in huge quantities from sensitive areas that shouldn’t be used for commercial exploitation. We want to be able to travel within a few miles of our workshop and visit the woodlands that our timber comes from. Until we can achieve this aim, we only use FSC hardwoods sourced from as nearby as possible.

Our frames use oak, black walnut, and poplar and each one has a poplar subframe to give the work durability and strength.

Anti-reflective glass

Almost all online wall art stores sell frames glazed with plastic. The one good thing about it is that it won’t break in transit. But that one good thing doesn’t undo all the bad things about it. We’ve taken the risk of sending out glass in our frames because glass is better for the environment, and it’s better for the artwork. We only use UV filtering anti-reflective glass.

Our shipping partner has been carefully selected for the care and attention they put into handling items in their custody, but if there’s any issues with an order, we’ll sort it out. It’s better for the planet and better for your art to take this very small risk.

Boards

Mounting boards

We use alpha-cellulose microchamber board, which has zeolites (natural purifying minerals) incorporated within them that pro-actively traps and neutralise pollutants from the atmosphere, as well as those generated by the artwork itself. This prevents chemical damage to the artwork, and significantly enhances the artwork’s longevity.

Backing board

We use archival corrugated Corri-cor backing board. This board is water-resistant, OBA-free, and uses 70% FSC fibre.

Natural paints & finishes

Paints

Little Greene: we use these water based paints which carry the industry’s highest eco-rating with VOC (volatile organic compounds) content virtually zero, and also provide a contribution to the National Trust with every pot of paint sold.

Colourman: A selection of natural, chalk based paints that are hand-mixed in Devon.

Farrow & Ball: Rich-pigment water-based paints established in Dorset in 1946.

Finishes

Our selection of finishes are renaissance wax, walnut wax, dark oak wax, matt varnish, and danish oil. These have been selected for their durability and quality.

Papers

We use print onto 3 archival papers:

Hahnemühle Hemp.

Made of 60% hemp fibre, and 40% cotton, this is one of the most sustainably-produced papers available. It’s ISO 9706 compliant, meaning it’s museum quality for high age resistance, it contains no optical brightening agents, and is acid and lignin-free. We love it’s lightly-textured surface, and how the prints look indistinguishable from the originals. Even the collection’s owner, Niall, mistook a print on this paper for the original.

Awagami Inbe Washi.

Handcrafted in Japan at Awagami’s Tokushima mill this
paper is made using a mixture of natural hemp and mulberry fibres blended with pure mountain water. Washi paper is made form renewable plant sources that reach maturity in a tenth of the time as wood-based papers, resulting in a paper that causes significantly less harm to the environment. 

Legacy Gloss.

325 gsm 100% OBA-free cotton Legacy Gloss, with the highest archival properties. The ‘Unglazed’ Gloss surface delivers a wide colour gamut, performing exquisitely for photographs. Of all the OBA papers we could find, this one came closest to traditional fibre-based c-type papers, and it performs just as well.

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Detail of picture frame moulding
cleaning near-invisible anti-reflective glass
Mountboard for picture frames
Paint colour chart
Fine art printing papers

3 sizes fits all

Interior showing framed Zünd Up print from Mount’s first collection.

Sizing

We’ve grouped our framed prints into three different size categories, making it simple find an ideal spot in your home for each of our pieces. As we have framed each print with careful consideration to the artwork, each size category is made up of a variation of frame sizes.

For exact measurements please look at the size information on the individual product pages.

Border pattern