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

ARTICULATED WORKS WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE 173 27. De Vos 1994a, 204-207. 28. Verougstraete and Van Schoute 1997b, 272-274. In Hans Memling’s Virgin and Child and a Donor from c. 1485-1490 (Chicago, The Art Institute, inv. nos. 1933.1050 and 1953.467), the grisaille decorating the exterior of the donor’s portrait indicates that it, too, should be placed on top. Hans Memling’s St John the Baptist and St Veronica Diptych 27 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, inv. nos. 652 and 1952.5.46;Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, inv. no. 1952.5.46) features, on the exterior, two niches, one curved on top and the other rectangular. A chalice is set in the rounded niche, and a skull in the other (fig. 87). The differences between the exterior decorations are not very pronounced. How to lay down the diptych correctly is not immediately obvious. We once thought that it could have been opened from either side, left to right, or right to left. 28 But we now believe that if the closed diptych were positioned with the niche containing the skull face-up, the lighting of the niche would suggest that the user should turn the object over (given the placing of the hinges), thus exposing the niche with St John the Evangelist’s chalice. The lighting of the latter niche would then invite the user to open the diptych. This opening procedure situates St Veronica on the wing, and St John the Baptist on the principal panel. This reading leads to the conclusion that the diptych’s subject was St John, or the two St Johns. Fig. 87. The outside of the wings of this diptych, each featuring a niche, appear of equal importance, rendered frontally. After reaching for the shadowy side of the niche, the user would either open or turn over the diptych, depending on the position of the hinges. Reconstruction of Hans Memling, St John the Baptist (outside: skull) and St Veronica (outside: chalice of St John the Evangelist), c. 1470/1480, 31.6 × 24.4 × c. 0.5 cm and 31.2 × 24.4 cm, original frames lost.