This frame design was made by painter and etcher Theodore Roussel in the 1890s. It is one of two proofs of the same design in the V&A's collection, object numbers E.1484-1991 and E.1485-1991. This frame design was paired with a mount pattern again designed, etched and printed by the artist. Roussel designed mounts and frames as ensembles and printed them in colours specially chosen to complement the print that they framed. According to Roussel, he did this to create "a harmony of colour, each proof so presented being the result sometimes of as many as twenty four or even a greater number of printings."

This design was one of two used in a set of nine prints of mounted and framed prints exhibited for the first time at the Goupil Gallery in 1899. The V&A holds the only known surviving complete framed set, object numbers E.1471-1991 to E.1479-1991 inclusive. They came from 'a house in Parson's Green', which is where Roussel lived, and are likely to have been the set in his house.

Roussel was born in Britanny and educated in Paris. In 1874 he moved to England. It was at Whistler's suggestion that he took up etching, developing the master's highly personal and private vision into public decorative works intended for the domestic interior. His approach to colour printing was revolutionary and fundamental to printing in colours in the twentieth century. In 1910 he became the first President of the Society of Graver Printers in Colour.