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

CHAPTER I 22 101. Goodman 1962; Bernt 1977; Velter and Lamothe 1976; Du Colombier 1973; Feller and Tourret 1970; Boccador 1988. 102. Feller and Tourret 1970, 33-34. 103. Mauquoy-Hendrickx 1978-1983, 1: 60-63, pl. 54-55. 104. Most of these tools and an explanation of their use are published by Van Tyghem (1966). This author wrote a thesis on the building tools used in the Middle Ages, including those used by carpenters on building sites. Some tools drawn are based on those shown on the right wing of the so-called Merode Triptych of the Annunciation by the Master of Flémalle (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, inv. no. 56.70 a–c) and on five prints in a series depicting Scenes of the Childhood of Jesus by Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619). The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has in its collections a small number of tools coming from an expedition which was shipwrecked in Novaya Zemlya in 1596- 1597. We have also drawn additional valuable information about the use of certain tools in joinery from the detailed works L’Art du Menuisier by Roubo. 3 vols. 1769-1775 (Reprint Léonce Laget, Paris, 1977). D. The tools The history of woodworking tools is a vast domain. 101 It is rendered all the more complex by the fact that the ancient depictions of tools, on which their history is largely based, are often unsystematic and difficult to interpret. Artists can fail to represent details that are significant in the evolution of a tool, and tend to use the most evocative tools and activities for their images. Nor, in the ancient written sources, does the same term always designate the same tool or part of the tool. Despite these shortcomings, we know that already in the 15th century craftsmen had a variety of tools at their disposal, most of them inherited from antiquity. We know that the Romans, and even earlier peoples, were already acquainted with the steeling of iron. In the Middle Ages, toolmaking skills were passed down mainly by the monasteries, with certain innovations introduced between the 13th and 16th centuries. 102 We will attempt below to relate the tools available at the time with the various stages in the production of a painting support. The woodworking tools which we depict here are taken either from 15th and 16th century paintings and engravings (such as representations of St Joseph in his workshop, scenes from the childhood of Christ, those of the Passion, of seasonal work, and the like) (figs. 4, 5 and 9 103 ) or are inspired by the very small number of tools of the time, or older, that have come down to us (fig. 11). 104