Frames and supports in 15th and 16th-century Southern Netherlandish painting

CHAPTER VI 120 7. Goetghebeur et al. 1966, 73-88. 8. See on Rubens’s supports: Glatigny 1992, 33-54; Fraiture and Dubois 2013, 313-329. 9. Marijnissen and Grosemans 1982-1983, 120-132. 10. Lefève 1962, 128-145. The four side panels are made of 6 boards each assembled with butt joins and dowels. The width of the boards varies between 25 and 30 cm, with a thickness of ± 2 cm. The wings retain their original frames, decorated with gold leaf tempera on the outer face, with a flat section between two sets of mouldings. The flat section carries a Greek key pattern, obtained using a stencil, with black paint applied onto the gilding through the holes in the stencil so as to leave the pattern in the gilding. The frames are painted black on the outside. The central panel consists of 11 vertical boards, each ± 311 cm high, 30 to 35 cm wide and 2 to 3 cm thick. These vertical boards are surmounted by two horizontal planks glued and assembled with butt joins and dowels and forming the curved central portion. Some vertical boards are assembled with butt joins and dowels, others with pegged keys. The Brussels joiners’ mark is present on the back of several boards. The boards are quarter or near-quartersawn and include some sapwood. The wood has been poorly smoothed on the front surface, with knots replaced by small wood inlays. These imperfections are surprising given the high quality of Brussels joinery in the century before. The Lamentation Triptych preserved in the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Watervliet also presents an assembly of vertical and horizontal boards. Three horizontal boards, forming the raised central portion, are arranged on the panel made of 11 vertical boards and 155.5 cm high. 7 The support for the Erection of the Cross by Rubens 8 (dimensions of the central panel: H 460 × W 340 cm) (Antwerp, Cathedral of Our Lady) is constructed as follows: the 19 boards of the central panel, arranged horizontally (the bottom board is not original) measure ± 340 cm which corresponds the maximum length of oak boards (± 12 feet, the Antwerp foot being 28.68 cm). The wings each have six vertical boards (also 340 cm in length) joined to six horizontal boards. In the left wing the vertical boards are at the top of the panel, while in the right wing they are at the bottom. The join of the horizontals to the verticals takes the form of a V-shaped (or conical) lip and groove; with the groove cut into the vertical boards. 9 The Descent from the Cross (central panel dimensions: H 421 cm × W 311 cm, thickness of the boards: 2 to 3.5 cm in the centre panel, 0.7 to 1.7 cm on the wings) by the same artist and conserved in the same location, is similarly constructed. Seventeen horizontal boards comprise the central panel and the wings have the same assembly of vertical and horizontal boards, but this time meeting at the top. 10