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

CHAPTER VI 124 17. Guislain-Wittermann 1978-1979, 89-105. 18. Goetghebeur et al. 1966, 76. 19. Davies 1970, 18-26. while the project drawing is for an altarpiece with a raised part. Régine Guislain- Wittermann has shown that the two parts of this work, one of which is conserved in the Museum of the Holy Blood in Bruges (inv. no. 45), the other at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, come from a single rectangular panel, sawn in two. 17 The same author has also shown that the drawing (cut into two, one kept in New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, inv. no. III, 127, the other in Paris, Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, inv. no. 20665) was the project for the painting. This change in shape for the central part, from a rectangular shape with raised part in the drawing, to a simple rectangular shape in the painting, possibly means that the work included wings, since it was probably to avoid excessively heavy wings that the shape was changed. In other cases, the raised portion of the wings has been amputated. Originally, the wings of the Triptych of the Lamentation by the Master of Watervliet, 1515 (Watervliet, Church of the Assumption of Our Lady), already mentioned, perfectly covered the raised central portion. 18 The amputation is probably due to the weight. The original frame is lost. The original form of the wings was reconstituted in 1966 at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels. Such amputation may in some cases be motivated by the desire to give symmetrical shape to a wing that has been detached from the central part of an altarpiece. An example of an amputation of a raised part of wings is given by Martin Davies 19 in the case of fragments attributed to the Simon Marmion group, The Soul of St Bertin Carried by the Angels and a Choir of Angels (London, The National Gallery, inv. nos. NG1302- 1303) . These fragments are the upper parts of the wings of the St Bertin Altarpiece (Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, cat. no. 1645-1645A), from which they were sawn in 1824, during the dismemberment of the altarpiece of the high altar of St Bertin at St-Omer. The weight of wings was a constant concern. Carved wings in particular sometimes attained a weight requiring them to be supported by props. Examples still exist today. The wings of the triptych of Jacques de Baerze with the outside wings painted by Melchior Broederlam in Dijon are on props. The original props moved on a rail, which served to guide the opening and closing of the wings. They were removed during a recent restoration and replaced by permanent props. There used to be another very large altarpiece with double wings, so large that, when opened, they had to be supported on trestles. This was a major work by Jan Gossart, the Triptych of the Deposition , placed on the high altar of the Premonstratensian Abbey