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THE PICTURE FRAME, as it exists today, is derived from the doorway or entrance to temples, palaces and cathedrals. From a functional viewpoint, it might have been more practical to place doors at the sides of these buildings, but the importance of the door framing an impressive picture of the interior was never overlooked.

The need to enhance a picture or bas-relief with a frame is evidenced from the earliest times. The first decorations were necessarily crude; a raised line sometimes being the only ornament.

The earliest examples of frame-like decorations or borders bear a great resemblance to door frames. They were composed of two columns surmounted by a con-necting entablature and this form persisted into the 15th century. Even the decorations painted by the artists around the edges of pictures before the intro-duction of movable frames were similar in form.

As a matter of fact, frames without pictures eventu-ally came into existencebecause the desire to embel-lish with Moldings was so strong. Rooms in palaces were arbitrarily paneled with Moldings and their vestigial remains are to be seen today in the senselessly paneled walls of apartments in modern cities.