Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/144

118 The other method of removing frescoes is one which has been used largely in Pompeii and other places where classical remains have been uncovered. A wooden frame is made in which the whole section of wall is fastened. The superfluous thickness at the back is then chopped away. This process necessitates the tearing down of the walls on which the frescoes have been painted and is, therefore, impractical in many instances. Any discussion of methods is idle, however, for no museum director has a right to experiment with the objects in his charge. Pictures in need of repairs should be entrusted only to skilled and conscientious experts with whom rests the choice of the method to be pursued.

—This is one of the most interesting problems which comes up in the arrangement of pictures. In the case of old paintings, modern opinion holds that the frame should be expressive of the period in which the painting was made. Many old frames have come down to us, although the museum director who starts out with the hope of providing his old pictures with frames of the period must expect to pay very nearly as much for the frame as he does for the picture, as any authentic old frame commands an enormously high price. In Europe where the museums have been established for so