The Old Portrait by Hume Nisbert 1st published 22nd February 1896.

Old fashion frames are a hobby of mine.

I'm always on the prowl amongst the framers and dealers and curiosities for something quaint

and unique in picture frames.

I don't care much for what is inside them.

For being a painter, it is my fancy to get the frames first and then paint a picture

which I think suits their probable history and design.

In this way, I get some curious and I think also some original ideas.

One day, in December, about a week before Christmas, I picked up a fine but dilapidated

specimen of wood carving in a shop near Soho.

The gilding had been worn nearly away and three of the corners broken off.

Yet, as there was one of the corners still left, I hoped to be able to repair the others

from it.

As for the canvas inside the frame, it was so smothered with dirt and time stains that

I could only distinguish that it had been a very badly painted lightness of some sort,

of some commonplace person, dubbed in by a poor pop boiling painter to fill the second

hand frame which his patron may have picked up cheaply, as I had done after him.

But as the frame was alright, I took the spoiled canvas along with it, thinking it might

come in handy.

For the next few days, my hands were full of work of one kind and another, so it was only

on Christmas Eve that I found myself at liberty to examine my purchase which had been lying

with its face to the wall since I had bought it to my studio.

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