Sold: Memory Frame

Memoryware frame portrait / mixed materials, found objects / c. 1900

Antique “memory” frame with tintype portrait, c. late nineteenth or early twentieth century. An excellent example of “memoryware” art, which takes its name from the intent to memorialize otherwise forgotten minutia. Memory pieces — usually composed of disparate small, seemingly random objects like buttons or keys — served to collect bits and pieces significant to their makers and are akin to personal journals or scrapbooks. They were also made to memorialize the dead, in which case personal objects belonging to the deceased would be used to create a memory mosaic.

This frame is composed of all manner of small objects, including buttons, toys, small bottles, screws, keys, and more, all adhered in layers to the wooden frame and painted in gold radiator paint. The back of the frame was likely originally papered-over with newspaper, but fragments remain, as do the labels of cigar boxes from which the frame itself was made.

The frame is a great example of a memory object and an evocative piece of assemblage art.

Good antique condition.

Measurements

9 inches tall
8 inches wide

Shipping

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