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

CHAPTER VIII 150 C. Frames with two (or three) bodies of mouldings Most 16th century frames are decorated with a double or triple body of mouldings. These bodies of mouldings are separated by a flat band. The moulding is developed from the existing repertory (ogee mouldings, beading, cavettos, ovolos, etc.). We have classified these frames according to the appearance of the exterior body of moulding. It can be cut in cavetto, ogee or ovolo shape. A flat band separates this body of mouldings from the interior body of mouldings. The latter body of mouldings is sometimes a simple repeat of the exterior moulding (ogee, cavetto, beaded cavetto). This new type of framing is no longer suited to an inclined bottom sill. The inclined sill is abandoned. To this rule there are only rare exceptions. One such example is the neatly cut but very complex Diptych with Christ Carrying the Cross and Portrait of a Friar Minor by Jan Provoost (Bruges, SJH , no. 11 ). In another case, the Triptych of the Assumption of the Virgin by Albrecht Bouts (Brussels, RMFAB , no. 21 ) the junction with the inclined sill of the bottom rail is very clumsy and includes small inlays originally intended to correct defects, which could originally have been concealed by the – now disappeared – polychromy. 1. Frames with cavetto moulding on the outside This type of moulding of the outer body of mouldings is common especially in frames from Bruges (14 cases) and Antwerp (5 cases) (fig. 74). The five Antwerp frames form a homogeneous and characteristic group, each with a flat band separating a cavetto and ogee moulding (fig. 74: 16-20). In most frames from the second half of the 16th century, the cavetto is squared off on both sides.