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

CHAPTER X 214 26. Duverger 1945, 54; Coremans 1953, 23 and 38, situates the production of the base to between 1586 to 1589. 27. In the 19th century the fate of the copies and originals was linked. Bettina von Roenne’s doctoral thesis on Schinkel’s neo-classical frames in German museums sheds further light on the subject: Schinkel rahmt. Die Bilderrahmen Karl Friedrich Schinkels (von Roenne 2011). Here is a summary of the known history. In the 16th century, the paintwork on the predella was effaced. The altarpieces were sheltered from the iconoclasts. Records speak of “two pieces ( twee sticx ) of the Adam and Eve altarpiece” being brought back into the church after the iconoclasts’ devastating passage. The archives mention the masterpiece being displayed in the Viglius Chapel for two years before returning to the Vijd Chapel. From the last years of the 15th century an (unspecified) problem was considered cause for concern. A base ( voet ) was produced, painted by Jan Cools, in an intervention dated 1587 by Jozef Duverger. 26 During the following years (1587-1589) the altarpieces were only rarely open for fear of “worsening the situation”. A lock was placed before 1591-1592. In 1662 Boudewijn Van Dickele installed a baroque architectural framework. In 1794 the Commissioners of the French Revolution, after two days of difficult dismantling in which they “nearly destroyed the crowning”, sent off the four central panels to Paris, where the tops of the boards of the three panels of the upper altarpiece were deemed unnecessary and sawn off to facilitate the new framing. In 1816 the paintings were returned. Seven months later the wings were sold and left for Germany, except for those of Adam and of Eve. At Ghent, in 1861-1865, the opportunity presented itself of reconstructing an ensemble following the purchase of the wings of the copy painted by Michiel Coxcie. 27 Coxcie’s ensemble lacked the wings with Adam and with Eve. Those of Van Eyck, which had remained in Ghent, were transferred to the Belgian state and exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels. To replace and complete the reconstruction in Ghent, painter Victor Lagye copied them, taking care to cloth our ancestors in animals’ skins. After the First World War, the original wings returned from Germany. The originals and copies were exhibited in Brussels in 1920. Then the masterpieces returned to the Cathedral of Ghent. The gilt frames of the central parts, made for the exhibition, were recovered for presentation in Ghent. The episode of the theft in 1934 is known. The altarpieces travelled once again during the Second World War and returned to their home port after the war. From 1950 onwards, the altarpieces were examined and restored. The wings sawn in half in Berlin were placed again back to back, the central frames renewed. The baroque framing was removed. All the elements were then placed in a steel outer frame and the wooden altar replaced by a masonry one to support the greatly increased weight of the ensemble. In 1986, the polyptych with its steel outer frame entered the Villa Chapel.