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

CHAPTER X 210 20. Duverger 1945; Van der Velden 2011, 5. 21. Cappelli 1990, 401-403. 22. For the copy by Coxcie, see note 11 . On the second part of the banderol one can read 27 followed by two signs. The number 27 must correspond to the date of Lubrecht’s death, known until now as 1426 from various later testimonies, dating from the second half of the 16th century. 20 Bernard Coulie interprets the two signs following the 27 as follows: “If the first two signs can be read as the last two digits of a date ([14]27), the two following signs may indicate the dating era, as is customary. In this case, they indicate the era of Christ, the first sign showing the word Christus, and the second Iesus. 21 Another reading would be to see in the second sign the Greek final ou ligated according to Greek usage to read Xristou.” The inscription was copied by Michiel Coxcie in 1558-1559, and in the 19th century by Schultz (fig. 108). 22 These early copies are of the painted texts, probably already overpainted or retouched, which would not have facilitated the understanding of the inscription. The reading of Van Eyck’s very short text was not immediately obvious, rendered unclear by both the material of the brocade and the savant character of his borrowings from Latin and Greek (or from a Latin or Greek system of abbreviation). Fig. 108. The text as copied by Schultz in 1824 and the one noted by De Bast the same year. Both reflect the state of conservation of the painted text in the first quarter of the 19th century. It is therefore for Lubrecht van Eyck, who died in [14]27, that the Virgin and St John the Baptist intercede with the Divine Lord. The upper altarpiece was painted after Lubrecht’s death by Jan, who conceived it as a tribute to his late brother. The separateness of the two altarpieces is important for understanding the iconography, which has until now been viewed as a single programme, the cohesion of which has