Protect your precious art against deterioration with archival matboards.
When you have a piece of art you wish to preserve for years to come, it is essential to use museum-quality materials, including archival matboards.
Your average paper matboards will only last for about five years before starting to break down and develop acidic properties that could damage the art. Archival matboards, on the other hand, will never turn color or break down. Instead they will provide continuous protection against contact with any acidic materials in the frame or backing that might pose a risk to your art over time.
We Offer Two Types of Archival Matboards
Based on our decades of experience in archival framing, we recommend the following two types of archival matboards:
- Crescent Rag Mat: This museum-quality mat is made from a 100 percent cotton rag core sandwiched between a pure white backing paper and colored surface paper. All components are buffered, 100 percent acid-free and lignin-free. This is our preferred matting selection.
- Bainbridge Mat: Bainbridge offers a variety of “Artcare” mats that are not only acid-free, pH neutral, and lignin-free, but also feature patented microchambers to proactively trap and neutralize harmful air pollutants that would otherwise cause art to fade, yellow, or deteriorate.
Let Us Help You Choose the Perfect Mat
Even once you’ve decided your art deserves archival matboards, you still have many choices to make regarding the color, texture, and width of the mats. These choices can have a dramatic effect on the appearance of your framed art.
At Allan Jeffries Framing, our frame artists excel in the creative use of matboards to achieve all kinds of visual effects. For example, we might recommend a boldly colored matboard to draw the eye to a black and white photo, or a very wide matboard to add bulk and presence to a very small painting.
No matter what type of mat you choose, you can rest assured we will cut it to the correct mat size and opening size and mount it properly in your frame for a perfect result.
Non-Archival Options
If you’re not quite ready to invest in archival mats, don’t worry. You can use paper matboards to provide temporary protection while you live with your art for a few years and see if you love it enough to upgrade to archival matboards. We also have handwrapped fabric mats and boards in linen, silk, suede, velvet, and textured fabrics.
Come Visit Us
We invite you to visit any of our frame shop locations to see samples of archival matboards and other products in person and discuss your framing project with our staff.
