Gift Horse Gallery mounts

The mount has two jobs:

First is to keep the picture away from the glass. Moisture can get into frames, usually from damp walls, this moisture can cause the picture to stick to the glass if the glass is touching the image.

Second is to enhance the look of the picture, putting a frame directly on an image can sometimes make the picture look small and claustrophobic adding a mount moves the frame away from the image and can lift a picture making it look lighter and freer. The use of coloured mounts can also enhance different areas and colours of pictures.

There are several types of mount board available. Each supplier uses slightly different terminology and manufacturing techniques and but the following gives an outline.

• Standard board is usually made from wood pulp and should have a pH reading of between 7 and 9.5. This reading is usually achieved buy buffering the wood pulp with calcium carbonate.
• Conservation board should be made from better quality materials and will also be buffered to a pH of 7 – 9.5. The surface paper should also have a higher degree of lightfastness and colour dyes should be less prone to bleeding.
• Museum board is made from 100% cotton fibers. These are naturally acid free but the board is usually buffered to protect from future contamination. dyes and pigments must be non-bleeding and lightfast. Only available in a few colours.

Other terms that apply to mountboard are:

• White Core, the core of the mountboard has been treated to keep the bevel white. This treatment can be applied to standard and conservation mountboard.
• Coloured Core, as the name implies the core of the mountboard has been treated to give it a colour, black is the most common. Suitable for standard mountboard only.

Ingrés mountboard has a textured surface.