Building a Frame for "My Little Rembrandt"

My friend Samson gave me this small 9"x9.5" painting by the artist Christopher Hanson. I admired its composition, shadowy effect, and especially the blue facial shadows! It has certain qualities that remind me of Rembrandt, and I've come to think of it as "my little Rembrandt." I also thought it needed at special frame.

My inspiration was this Renaissance frame that probably dates from the 1400s. I liked that it's primarily one color because I didn't want to detract from the image, especially since it's a rather small painting.

 

My plan was to build a simple frame and then adhere veneers with lasered patterns and columns designs. The first step, though, was making the inner frame, here shown as gold.

I found an old, blue frame in a thrift store, and my brother Cliff re-cut it to fit the painting. Next, I searched the internet and found a wonderful pattern for the horizontals, which I'll call the header and footer. 

Then I designed the capital for the two columns:

In the final product, the veneer was first painted gold, then the black of the design was burned into it by the laser, while the laser skipped whatever was white, leaving a gold design, like this:

 

It was less time-consuming to laser the column horizontally:

Here's my good friend Richard Radice, laser-cutting the veneers. He's constructed a box to contain the laser, and notice that he shields his eyes to even take a peek at the progress.

Meanwhile, my brother Cliff was helping me by constructing the "under frame." Because I was concerned that glue would get on the lasered veneers, I devised supports for the mouldings so that they would cantilever over the veneers, as shown below.

 And here's the finished frame:

 

A special thanks to my collaborators, Cliff and Richard!