Frits Lugt used to keep most of his drawings in albums and portfolios, in the eighteenth-century manner. A small number were hung in the rooms of his various houses, as can be seen in the archive photographs. The drawings were presented in the antique frames of which he was a keen collector. He was of the opinion that genuine frames in appropriate styles were indispensable to the full appreciation of works of art.

In 1957 he organised, at the recently-established Institut Néerlandais in Paris, his first exhibition of drawings by Rembrandt and his school, in antique frames.