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

MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES: the ghent altarpiece 209 Fig. 107. Details (X-radiograph and normal light) of the applied brocade. a-b. Details of a banderol under and to the right of St John’s raised hand. c. Part of a banderol to the right of his mantle. These details enable us to read the text on the banderol, present in the relief of the Pressbrokat . The B is slightly different in the two first details, which implies that the text was inscribed manually on each banderol. Elsewhere the same text is poorly preserved. In the heavily retouched text on the banderols behind the Virgin, we can identify on the X-radiograph only a few scattered letters remaining of the initial inscription, but nonetheless sufficient to lead us to conclude that originally the same inscription was repeated throughout. a b c