Young Red Haired Girl Strips Her Clothes At The Wall With Paintings In The Frame

Under the reign of Francis I, France's first Renaissance monarch from 1515 through 1547, art came to the forefront of daily life and flourished along with picture frames. Many workers came from Italy to partake in the arts trade, including Leonardo da Vinci, whom "Francis convinced to leave Italy in the last part of his life." Frames were now designed by furniture builders rather than the artist, sculptor or architect as in the past. Books on furniture and interior design were published and in distribution to a wider market than ever before.
From 1610 to 1643, under the reign of Louis XIII in France, the influence of court and refinement takes center stage in frame designs. The profiles became thinner than their Italian predecessors, and continuous design such as egg-and-dart, ribbon and flow of leaves, and pronounced low relief corner designs appear. This paves the way for Baroque design in picture framing, and "Spanish, Flemish, and Italian influences were all at work to produce a curious intermingling and exchange of ideas."
Pictures frames as art were highly developed in Ortodox countries (e.g., Russia, Serbia) and used to cover icons in churches.