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

ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 169 16. Hand et al. 2006, 2. 17. Smith 1998, 27-48. 18. Hand et al. 2006, 6; Van der Velden 2006, 125-153. 4. Vaulted niches or open spaces Why, in the Ghent Altarpiece , are some niches vaulted and others open to the sky? Even the perspective of the vault varies from one representation to another, within one and the same work. The vaults above Adam and Eve are barely visible. By contrast, on the grisaille St Johns on the closed wings, the vaults very firmly close the spaces. The artist had his reasons for doing so, organizing the spaces in a manner that remains to be explained. B. Examples 1. Diptychs Being often of limited size (between 11.5 cm and 140 cm in height, most of them less than less than 50 cm), 16 most diptychs were generally used as movable objects. The smallest of them fitted into the palm of a hand. Some were designed to be hung from bed curtains. These were probably not articulated, for reasons of stability, but glued or attached to one another, which does not exclude their being painted on both sides and reversible. Their use does not pose a big problem. More difficult to assess is the use made of the larger diptychs, those which, for contemplation, were placed on an item of furniture, on the inclined plane of a prie-Dieu, or on a cushion … then reclosed and stored in a box, sometimes locked, or in a bag or cover. Only rarely do we find diptychs complete with bag, such as the Matheron Diptych , attributed to Nicolas Froment, representing René of Anjou and Jeanne de Laval, c. 1476 (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. R.F. 665). 17 Not all diptychs were mobile. Examples survive of diptychs intended for hanging on a wall, with a stationary panel unpainted on its reverse and a wing painted on both sides. 18 What is the correct way to handle a diptych? As already mentioned, the instructions are shown on both the closed and the opened diptych. They may be given by the joinery (the mouldings of the frame) and/or the ironwork (position of the closing hook, placing of the hinges, etc.). Some diptychs were shaped like books, which acts as an instruction for correct opening, which was, as with any book, from right to left. Painted instructions have also been mentioned already: a niche, the angle of incidence of light … In the case of open diptychs, the frontal perspective of a particular representation was an invitation to accord it contemplative preference. The vanishing lines, in a semi-fan, of wall and/or ceiling tiling, anticipated the opening movement of the wing.