How it travels
From frame to doorEvery commission ships fully insured, duties prepaid, tracked to your door — anywhere in the world. The journey from a finished portrait to your wall takes eight to sixteen days, and every stage of it appears on your private tracking page.
Your artisan ties off the last thread and the portrait leaves the frame for good. You receive a completion photograph the same day.
Oak moulding, museum glass, sealed backing — done by a framing house in Suzhou we have worked with for years.
Certificate signed and numbered. The portrait is wrapped, cushioned, and packed into its custom travel case.
Door-to-door tracked air freight, insured for the portrait's full value, with all duties and taxes prepaid by us.
Signature required. Open it slowly — the silk has been in the dark for a week and deserves the reveal.
What "duties prepaid" means
- All customs duties and import taxes are calculated into your price and paid by us before the portrait flies.
- Delivery is DDP — Delivered Duty Paid — the international freight term that puts every cost and every risk on our side of the door.
- You will be asked for one signature, at your door. Nothing more, ever.
The price you approved at checkout is the whole price — door included.
Museum-grade, four layers deep
- Acid-free tissue laid directly over the silk, beneath the museum glass — double protection against moisture and abrasion.
- Quilted cotton wrap and rigid corner protection around the frame.
- Custom double-walled export case, foam-board lined, made to the portrait's exact dimensions. Bespoke commissions ship in a wooden crate.
- Certificate of origin and care card sealed in a document pouch, travelling beside — never beneath — the portrait.
Photograph everything
The box, the packaging, the portrait — before you tidy anything. Carriers require the scene as found; the insurance claim depends on it.
Contact us within 48 hours
Email the concierge with your photographs. The 48-hour window is the carrier's requirement, not ours — but it is firm.
We file the claim
You will never negotiate with a shipping company. We handle the insurer, the paperwork, and the follow-up ourselves.
The remake begins
Your portrait moves to the front of the queue — same photograph, same artisan where possible, at no cost to you. Ever.
To be honest about the odds: damage is rare, and the packaging above is designed by people who assume the worst about every truck, forklift, and customs officer between here and you. But if the worst happens, the procedure is short and it is ours to carry, not yours. If it arrives damaged, we remake it — that is the whole policy.
How it keeps
Mostly, leave it aloneSu embroidery in museum collections holds its colour after centuries; museum glass filters nearly all UV. The silk does the lasting. Your part is small — hang it well, dust it rarely, and keep chemicals away from it — and the portrait will be received, not merely kept, by someone who loves them too.
What serves the silk
- Hang it in light you would read in. Indirect daylight is welcome — the dyes were chosen for it. Direct sun for hours a day, year after year, is not.
- Keep the room between 40–60% humidity. A room comfortable for you is comfortable for silk; steady matters more than exact.
- Dust with a soft natural-bristle brush, once a season at most, in one gentle direction. Or simply not at all — glass does most of the protecting.
- Clean the glass with a barely damp cloth — dampened away from the frame, wiped toward the centre. Never wet enough to run.
- Check the backing seal every few years. Gaps are a framer's easy fix, ignored gaps are a restorer's invoice.
What harms it
- Never wash the silk — not water, not dry-cleaning, not "just a corner". Water is how heirlooms die. If something touches the silk itself, write to us before touching it yourself.
- Never spray anything at the frame. Glass cleaner migrates under the edges and into the mount. Spray the cloth, never the frame.
- Never hang above a radiator, a fireplace, or in a bathroom. Heat and humidity swings are the two honest enemies.
- Never touch the silk surface with bare hands — skin oils are permanent guests. This is what the museum glass is for; let it do the job.
- Never reframe with a discount framer. Ordinary glass undoes fifty years of UV protection in five. If the frame must change, ask us first — we'll tell you what to insist on.
Built to be received, not just kept.
Your certificate of origin names the hands that made the portrait, the hours it took, and your commission number — and that number corresponds to a permanent record in the studio archive. Decades from now, whoever inherits the piece can trace it back to its frame, its photograph, its maker, by a single number. That is what the certificate is actually for.
If it ever needs re-framing or conservation in the years between now and then, ask us first — the advice is free, and it is cheaper than a mistake. Accredited conservators exist for everything else; we will happily tell you when one is genuinely needed and, just as often, when a restorer is selling you something the silk does not want.
The thread will outlive us all. Treat it accordingly.
Some answers are better spoken.
Shipping questions, hanging questions, fifty-years-from-now questions — the concierge answers all three, honestly, and ends with a recommendation even if that recommendation is "anywhere but the bathroom".