Here's how this usually ends, and I've watched it happen more times than is decent.

The box arrives. It's bigger than the box you were expecting. You get it open, you get the painting out, you hold it up against the wall between the window and the bookcase — the wall you have been picturing this on for three weeks — and something is wrong. It doesn't fit. Not "it's a bit snug". It doesn't fit, by twenty centimetres, and there is nowhere else in the room it can go.

And you did nothing wrong. You ordered a 60 × 90 painting and you measured a wall that takes a 60 × 90 painting. Nobody told you that the frame goes on the outside.

Let's fix that permanently, and then I'll give you a four-question procedure that gets you to one frame code in about ninety seconds, so you can go back to looking at the picture, which is the only enjoyable part of this.

The 30-Second Answer

Exactly Which Sizes Are Accepted

These frames are moulded to the piece rather than cut from stock, so they exist in a defined window. Here it is, without weasel words:

Both orientations are made — portrait and landscape are genuinely different frames, not one turned on its side — in both the antique gold and the champagne silver.

Worked through, so there's no ambiguity:

If your piece falls outside: change the frame, not the painting. The mitred wood and plastic profiles are made at any size you like, so a 30 × 40 print or a 120 × 80 panorama is still perfectly framable. Resizing a painting to suit a frame gets the priority exactly backwards, and on a hand-painted reproduction it quietly alters the proportions the composition was built on.

The Arithmetic Everybody Forgets

The frame surrounds the painting. So it adds its width twice to each dimension — once on each side. This is obvious once stated and catastrophic when overlooked.

Read the bottom-right cell. You ordered a 90 cm painting. You are hanging a 120 cm object. That is a third again, and it is the difference between "commanding" and "we had to move the sideboard".

And you need clear wall around it, or the whole thing reads as crowded no matter what it cost. Working rules that have never let me down:

• Leave 15–20 cm of clear wall each side, minimum. More if there's a light switch, a doorframe or a radiator in the picture.
• Hang the centre of the painting at 145–152 cm from the floor. That's standard gallery eye level, and it's why museum hangs feel right and domestic hangs often feel slightly too high.
• Do the tape test. Masking tape a rectangle of the framed dimensions on the wall and leave it up for a day. It costs nothing and it has saved more orders than any other piece of advice in this trade.

What It Costs At Every Size, Two Sellers

Let's use The Starry Night — a painting van Gogh made from a barred window in an asylum and then described, in a letter, as a failure. The most reproduced night sky in human history, and he thought he'd botched it.

The original is 73.7 × 92.1 cm, which is just over the window, so at 60 × 50 cm here's the whole picture, both sellers:

Every figure is a live quotation with the frame included. Click any frame code to open the buy page with the size and the frame already selected — the "hangs as" column is what you actually put on the wall.

And the frame price at the two ends of the window, so you can see how steeply it scales — this is why "frames from $X" tells you almost nothing:

The Four-Question Procedure

Right. Ninety seconds. Answer in order, and stop at the first no — the questions are ordered so that the cheapest exits come first.

What century is the painting?

Pre-1900 and representational? An ornate moulded frame is in play. Continue.
Post-1950, flat, graphic or abstract? Stop. Buy a 5 cm white or black profile, or a gallery wrap, or nothing. You have just saved between $200 and $400 and, more importantly, you have not made your Klimt-adjacent modern piece look like a hotel corridor.

Warm or cool?

Stand three metres back and half-close your eyes. Whatever colour survives is your answer.
Warm — reds, ochres, ambers, browns, harvest and lamplight → gold.
Cool — blues, greys, greens, whites, pastels, water, night, stone → champagne silver.
Same price either way, so there is no financial excuse for getting this wrong. The Starry Night, incidentally, is cool: it's a blue painting with yellow punctuation, and it wants the silver.

Does it fit the window, and at what width?

Short side 40–60 cm, long side 50–90 cm. Outside that, stop and choose a mitred profile at any size you like.
Inside it: H24 (10 cm) for anything up to about 50 × 70. H36 (15 cm) from 50 × 70 up to the 60 × 90 ceiling. At 40 × 50 the H36 leaves you with an object that's nearly two-thirds frame, which is not grandeur, it's imbalance.

Will the framed object fit the wall?

Add double the frame width to each dimension, look it up in the footprint table above, and tape it out. If the answer is no, drop a width — an H24 instead of an H36 saves you 10 cm in each direction — or drop a size. Do not simply hope.

Four questions. One frame code. Go and look at the painting.

How This Compares Elsewhere

Worth knowing before you assume every seller has a comparable window.

TOPofART frames nothing longer than 71 cm, and their FAQ states they frame art prints only — not hand-painted reproductions — because of transit risk. So on their site, a framed 60 × 90 hand-painted oil is not a product that exists at any price. AllArtClassic doesn't frame as standard; they ship with two inches (5.1 cm) of spare canvas for stretching and send you to a local frame shop. Reproduction Gallery refers framing to recommended third parties in New Jersey, Los Angeles and Singapore.

At the other end, Art Prints on Demand has a far wider size range than the window described here — up to roughly 290 × 240 cm — with a genuine Baroque catalogue made in Italy, Austria and Germany (LE ROI and LA REINE at 14.0 cm, VENIZIANO at 10.7 cm, BAROCCO at 9.2 cm). Unique-Canvas similarly spans Baroque to modern strips with a preview tool. That size freedom is the real advantage of a cut moulding: stock profile can be sawn to anything. A frame moulded as one continuous unit to your size cannot, which is exactly why it has a window and exactly why the ornament turns the corner.

Both trade-offs are legitimate. You just need to know which one you're buying.

The Verdict

Short side 40–60. Long side 50–90. Add 20 cm each way for an H24, 30 for an H36. Tape it on the wall before you buy it.

Then: century, palette, size, footprint. Stop at the first no. That's the whole method, and it will outperform an afternoon of scrolling every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What sizes can the H24 and H36 be ordered in?

Shorter side 40–60 cm, longer side 50–90 cm, in portrait and landscape. Smallest 40 × 50, largest 60 × 90 or 90 × 60. A 45 × 45 is out (long side under 50). A 70 × 70 is out (short side over 60). A 60 × 100 is out (long side over 90).

How big will the framed painting actually be?

Add the frame width to all four sides. H24 adds 20 cm to each dimension — a 50 × 70 painting hangs as 70 × 90. H36 adds 30 cm — a 60 × 90 painting hangs as 90 × 120. This is the most common regret in buying framed art and a tape measure removes it completely.

How do I choose a frame in under two minutes?

Century first: pre-1900 representational keeps the ornate frame in play, post-1950 graphic rules it out. Palette second: warm takes gold, cool takes champagne silver, same price. Size third: check the window, then 10 cm up to about 50 × 70 and 15 cm above. Footprint fourth: add the frame to all four sides and tape it on the wall. Stop at the first no.

How much clear wall do I need around it?

At least 15–20 cm each side, and hang the centre at 145–152 cm from the floor, which is gallery eye level. A 90 × 120 cm framed object therefore wants a wall with at least 120 cm of genuinely usable width — no light switches, no door architrave, no radiator.

What if my painting is outside the window?

Change the frame, not the painting. The mitred wood and plastic profiles are made at any size, so a 30 × 40 print or a 120 × 80 panorama is still framable. Resizing artwork to fit a frame inverts the priority, and on a hand-painted reproduction it alters the proportions the composition was built on.

Sources

• Live quotations, frame specifications and accepted-size limits from Most-Famous-Paintings.com and OriginalUniqueArt.com, read 11 August 2026.
• Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, June 1889, 73.7 × 92.1 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York — painted from the window of the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and judged a failure by the artist in his own correspondence.
• TOPofART FAQ — art prints framed, hand-painted reproductions not; 71 cm maximum framed length.
• AllArtClassic FAQ and ordering information; Reproduction Gallery framing services.
• Art Prints on Demand baroque frames — profile widths and maximum dimensions; Unique-Canvas framing studio; Fabulous Masterpieces; MFA archival replicas.
• Gallery hanging height of 145–152 cm to the centre of the work — standard museum and gallery practice.

Prices quoted live on 11 August 2026 and change with size, currency and date. Competitor terms are as published on their own sites on that date.