During the eighteenth century in this country, the frames used to enhance the work of serious and aspiring American artists were generally imported from England and Europe and thus displayed traditional European designs. By comparison, paintings by itinerant American limner painters were often given modest frames of plain boards that could be made by American cabinetmakers or carpenters working in a vernacular idiom. The dull, black, painted finish on such frames, applied to a molding shaped by chisels and gouges, answered the needs of sitters who lived in rural areas and who were not tempted by the elaborate European designs seen in urban homes. Providing a simple setting for a painter's own straightforward approach, the modestly profiled and painted frame stands as one of the first American contributions to the art of picture framing.