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

MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES: the ghent altarpiece 219 35. Van Vaernewijk 1568, fol. 119, quoted from Coremans 1953, 35. 36. Coremans 1953, 36. b) The 16th century (fig. 111) · The destruction of the predella painting Marcus Van Vaernewijck tells us that calve’s hands (“kalvershanden”) erased the painting on the predella before 1550. 35 These were probably Calvinist hands, animated by religious zeal.We are in the middle of the wars of religion. Satirical prints delighted in representing a calf’s head (“kalf”) on Calvin’s plate. The destruction of the paint on the predella does not imply the destruction of its wooden structure, but this structure would not survive the action of the iconoclasts. · The sagging of the upper wings; the iconoclast disorders Already by the beginning of the 16th century, the sagging of the wings had made it difficult to close the upper altarpiece (fig. 112). We presume that the sagging of the wings of the upper altarpiece explains the concerns expressed in archival sources during the 16th century. Closing the overlapping wings had become difficult and their upper parts were cut. The diagram evokes the altarpiece in its original height. The shape, however, is hypothetical since we do not have a single original upper edge. The upper edges of the wings were all cut in the 16th century and the centre panels in Paris during the French Revolution. In this article, when illustrating the original altarpieces, I have drawn the centre panel either curved at the top, either straight. None of these shapes can be excluded. The tracery was then sawn off to lighten the wings and limit their overlapping upon closure. In the same way, to avoid overlapping, the central stiles were tapered to a spindle shape and the rebates also recarved in a spindle shape. These concerns help to understand the insistence with which Michiel Coxcie was advised to take care with the support for his painting: “[…] by Master Michiel, who was recommended to use well-joined wooden panels . ” 36 It is possible that Coxcie had no knowledge of the tracery above the wings, but saw that which crowned the central parts.