FRAME, a word employed in many different senses, signifying something joined together or shaped. In constructional work it connotes the union of pieces of wood, metal or other material for purposes of enclosure as in the case of a picture or mirror frame. Frames intended for these uses are of great artistic interest but comparatively modern origin. There is no record of their exis tence earlier than the 16th century, but the decorative opportuni ties which they afforded caused speedy popularity, and the Renais sance found in the picture frame a rich and attractive means of ex pression. Fine work was produced in such profusion that great numbers of examples are still extant. Frames for pictures or mirrors are usually square, oblong, round or oval, and, although they have usually been made of wood or composition overlaid upon wood, the richest and most costly materials have often been used. Ebony. ivory and tortoise—shell. crystal amber and mnther of-pearl; lacquer, gold and silver, and almost every other metal have been employed for this purpose. The domestic frame has in fact varied from the simplest and cheapest form of a plain wooden moulding to the most richly carved examples. The intro duction in the 17th century of larger sheets of glass gave the art of frame-making a great impetus, and in the 18th century the in creased demand for frames, caused chiefly by the introduction of cheaper forms of mirrors, led to the invention of a composition which could be readily moulded into stereotyped patterns and gilded. This was eventually the deathblow of the artistic frame, and since the use of composition moulding became normal, no im portant school of wood-carving turned its attention to frames until the revival of interest in the applied arts in the first quarter of the present century.