Long ago, art collectors tended to be more concerned with a frame’s capacity to blend in with the furniture. However, today’s museum attitudes to framing favour authenticity, with the painting and its frame forming a harmonious marriage in the same historical style.  In the past, numerous paintings in the Art Gallery of NSW collection were removed from their original frames, with the result that many of the separated frames were destroyed. The restoration of original frames, as well as the design and creation of appropriate reproduction frames, are major activities of the conservation department – and also a dying art.