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

CHAPTER IX 176 Fastening mechanisms and hinges also provide information on how to unfold a diptych. Diptychs closed by means of a metal hook anchored in the narrow side of the pivoting wing frame (the screws one sees sometimes are not original and replace the original forged nails); in closing, the hook falls into place for securing into a ring (or onto a nail) fixed to the frame of the dormant panel. The hook would not have been fixed to the principal panel of the diptych, which logically would be underneath, because the clasp would have had a tendency to fall open, and the mechanism could not guarantee effective fastening. In triptych wings, the hook device was nailed on the flat part of the frame of the right wing frame, and the ring (or the nail) on the left side. Where there were two hooks, one above the other, these were sometimes positioned in opposite directions, as in Hans Memling’s Reins Triptych (Bruges, SJH , no. 4 ). The fastening devices, or their traces, can yield valuable information and tell us, depending on their position on the narrow sides or on the flat part of the frames of dismantled works, whether the latter once belonged to a diptych or to a triptych. Some diptychs had fastening mechanisms similar to those of manuscripts, with leather straps anchored in the borders of the frames. The small, book-shaped diptych by the Master of the Benson Portraits (Antwerp, Mayer van den Bergh Museum, inv. no. 254) features a hole in the centre of each outside border that could have served for inserting a pin to fix a strap. The Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove (Bruges, SJH , no. 5 ) provides another example of this. X-radiography has revealed the existence of Fig. 90. The simple arches on the outside have a shadow side, represented by a single line, which guides the opening. Master of the St Ursula Legend, Diptych of the Virgin and Child and Three Donors , 1486, each element 32 × 24.5 cm, original frames included.