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

157 Introduction Articulated works are those which have one or more wings that pivot around an axis. This is usually a hinge, but can also, rarely, take other forms including, for small-sized works, interlaced metal wires and leather, parchment or paper straps. The present chapter is based on the exhibition Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych held in Washington and Antwerp in 2006-2007. 1 The large exhibition catalogue is rich in information. Alongside the exhibition, Hand and Spronk organized meetings and invited some fifteen authors to shed light, in a volume of essays, on one particular aspect of diptychs, such as their origin, popularity, social or religious role. 2 One question raised in one such meeting was: why do some diptychs open from left to right and others from right to left? 3 The search for an answer has inspired this chapter. The diptych user certainly did not proceed by trial and error. He needed to be in possession of the necessary instructions. The mock-ups of diptychs that we have been able to produce 4 reveal that certain characteristics of the joinery and/or painting are repeated from one diptych to the next and can be interpreted as real “instructions for proper use”. For a diptych these are: “Open from left to right” or “Open from right to left” or “Turn the object onto the other side first, then open”, “Understand the order of hierarchy”, “See the hierarchy between the figures, representations, spaces, spheres of this world”, “See the inter-connections”… In the case of a reversible diptych: “Turn the object onto the other side”… By following these instructions the viewer could proceed as required in the representation. We shall describe a reversible diptych (which we propose to reconstitute from dismembered parts): it was opened, then shut and turned round to reveal a second diptych. Similar instructions can be recognized in other articulated works. 5 For a triptych the instructions are: “First open the right wing, then the left (or vice versa as the case may be)”, “Contemplate first the subject to the left (or to the right as the case may be)” and the like. On the outsides of triptych CHAPTER IX ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 1. We thank John Hand, Catherine Metzger and Ron Spronk for the stimulating work initiated by them on the subject of Flemish diptychs. Hand et al. 2006. 2. Hand and Spronk 2006. 3. Verougstraete 2006, 156-171. 4. Photographs of the reverse sides of paintings or the outsides of articulated works are rarely reproduced in books. One exception is the 1990 book of Angelica Dülberg (1990). 5. Verougstraete 2009, 182-200.