This book showcases the ornamental material our Company was founded on. Our founder, Joseph Pierce Weaver from Liverpool, UK, brought with him to Los Angeles the unique family compo recipe and his masterful abilities for reverse wood carving. He set up his shop in Downtown Los Angeles in 1914 and initially his business was focused on fabricating ornament for the furniture and elaborate picture framing industry. A third generation gilder by trade, he fabricated the composition ornament, applied it to wood frames, applied gesso and gilded to his client’s taste. Composition Ornament, or "Compo", is a decorative art medium that highly flexible and self-bonding to any interior hard surface. It is an interior decoration that has been all but lost for centuries. Originated in the Early Italian Renaissance, this fine form of relief ornament has been, and is still used today on furniture, cabinetry, millwork, ceilings and walls.
Our company, continuing Joseph Pierce Weaver’s legacy, is one of the few surviving firms to actively fabricate compo ornaments made with our unique family recipe. Over ten Thousand of our pieces all beautifully displayed on full size boards in our showroom in Glendale, CA and available to order from this catalog of over 300 pages -- and all pictured in perfect 1/4 scale to facilitate design. For installation information and also painting techniques, please visit our "Video Gallery" under the "Compo" menu tab.