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

ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 171 22. Detail with insert on the X-radiograph in Comblen-Sonkes and Lorentz 1995, II, pl. I. 23. Hand et al. 2006, 5-6. 24. Hand et al. 2006, 178-185. 25. Verougstraete and Van Schoute 1989, 150-151; Verougstraete and Van Schoute 1997b, 269-286. positions of which are still visible around the stucco. At these places, four points of high density (leftovers of metal claws?) are visible on the X-radiograph (fig. 124). 22 Experts of the Louvre in Paris have expressed the opinion that the frames are original but were transformed into a simulated book in the 17th or 18th century. However, other diptychs masquerading as books do exist in the 15th and 16th centuries. An example was presented in the 2006-2007 exhibition Prayers and Portraits. Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych. The authors of the catalogue mention that in the Burgundian Netherlands from the late 14th century onward there are references to paintings simulating books. 23 Rather than see in the book-shaped diptych from the Louvre a later transformation, because it resembles 17th and 18th century books, one should reverse the reasoning, and see the 17th and 18th century books as drawing inspiration from a long tradition. Book-shaped diptychs remain exceptions. Many diptychs when closed feature two dissimilar exteriors. This would indicate that they were to be displayed on a horizontal or inclined surface with the more elaborately decorated exterior on top. The dissimilarity between the two outsides is sometimes restricted to the moulding on the frame. In Hans Memling’s Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove in Bruges (Bruges, SJH , no. 5 ), both outsides are painted black on top of the original marbling. 24 The inner edges of the frame on the outside of the depiction of Maarten are bevelled toward the panels surface, whereas the inner edges of the frame on the outside of the Virgin and Child are sharp. 25 This is comparable to what one sees in triptychs – the reverse of the central frame is cut sharply, whereas the outside frames on the wings have edges bevelled toward the painting. Yet there is a difference. In triptychs, the reverse of the dormant central panel – never supposed to be exposed to view – was left unpainted. In diptychs, both outsides were usually painted. The bevelled frame on the outside of the Maarten panel should have been displayed face-up prior to opening the diptych. This means the portrait panel constitutes the wing, intended to swing open and shut. There would obviously have been a way to recognize the top from the bottom, for example by means of the ironware. The principal panel featuring the Virgin and Child is the diptych’s dormant element. In the case of Jan Gossart’s Jean Carondelet and Virgin and Child , 1517 (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 1442-1443), the opposite holds true: the bevelled edge of the frame is on the exterior of the Virgin and Child that seems to have constituted the wing. Meanwhile, on the outside of Jean Carondelet’s portrait, the frame’s sharp inner edge corresponds to diptych’s dormant element. The protective function of the wing was extended literally, and the Virgin and Child thus protected Carondelet. This protective function,