JARVIS HALL FINE FRAMES

As a self-taught gilder living in Calgary, Jarvis Hall has combed the Internet and historical texts for insights into the centuries-old art of applying gold and silver leaf. “It’s like being in a dark room, especially in Canada and especially in this part of Canada—there’s nobody else who does it.”
That’s why his recent meeting with Giovanni Bucchi was so welcome. Hall’s hookup with the master gilder occurred, like all good meetings, at a conference in Las Vegas. At the end of the month Hall will travel to New York to study with Bucchi, whose clients include the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but who is perhaps best known as an appraiser on The Antiques Roadshow. “My work should take a big leap,” Hall says. “He’s ridiculously good.”
The thought of Hall’s craftsmanship improving is a little scary. He’s already adept at the arts of hand-carving and gilding frames, a process that involves applying 10 coats of gesso (hide glue mixed with marble dust) and sanding it “porcelain smooth” before putting on five coats of burnishing clay. Then the gold leaf is applied, burnished and toned using shellac mixed with pigment.
All his skills are on display in the ornate piece he is currently making for an art collector who purchased a Corot at auction in New York. The frame, which is based on those produced during the reign of Louis XVI, will take about 70 hours to produce and cost $5,000.
That’s a good chunk of time but it represents a big change in the august art of gilding. “I was joking with my father that if I was doing this for the king, I’d have two years,” Hall says. “It’d be a meagre living, but the king would give me a few animals—enough to keep my family fed— and a cold room.”
Hall has done better than that since leaving Paul Kuhn Gallery to start his eponymous shop three years ago. But that’s not to say he doesn’t sometimes envy those earlier craftsmen. Instead of the king’s patronage, Hall is “dealing with modern prices, Calgary rent and compressing two years into six weeks.”