About the project

The idea for this project arose during research on 20 empty inscribed frames from the Renaissance. As a frame type, the inscribed frame has so far only been documented in specific cases. Inscriptions on frames are rare, but can be found all over Europe.

The different perspectives in relation to the picture-text connection, the differences in content of the texts, the typography, the craft and the embedding in socio-historical developments still need to be researched in detail.

Tanja Lemke-Mahdavi is a communication designer. For 25 years she has been working independently as a designer and project manager for companies, organizations, institutions or collaboratively in free projects in culture and business. Typography always plays a major role in her work, not just for the sake of pure legibility, but as an expression of individuality and communication between people. The way we ”wrap“ words says a lot about us. Through typography, we give the content of the texts a personality and attitude. Over the last few years, she has developed processes and products for simultaneously publishing publications in analog and digital form.

Tanja Lemke-Mahdavi has a very personal relationship with frames. She grew up with hundreds of empty antique frames in her parents’ shop, spent vacations on business trips all over Europe, restored frames as a teenager for her first pocket money, and got to know museum artworks up close without fear of contact. Tanja Lemke-Mahdavi has been engaged with inscribed Renaissance frames for years. First out of love for typography, later out of enthusiasm for the “stories” that pictures, frames and inscriptions tell. 

Behind this project is a network of frame specialists, art historians, restorers, curators and artists. All of them contribute to explore new aspects again and again, to distinguish the essential from the non-essential and to encourage to continue. 

The research on this still little documented frame type, is the reason for this website and the call for collaboration. For the topics are so diverse and extensive that it requires respective specialists. We are looking for further specialists in the fields of art history and art studies, cultural studies, epigraphy, and religious studies.