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

MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES: the ghent altarpiece 223 39. Church accounts, 1584-1585, fol. 30 and 30v; Dhanens 1965, 116. 40. Dhanens 1965, 39. 41. The Hague, RKD, Friedländer Archive (illustrations nos. 0000215246 and 0000213833). The heavy strap hinges are nailed flat onto the curved rail which is applied and pegged to the panel and not part of the original carrying structure. They probably date from when the tops of the wings were sawn back. They serve to compensate for the destruction of the upper part of the frame and reinforce the original hinges inside the altarpiece. It is curious that these heavy strap hinges end with knuckles located on the outside, on the side of the closed wings. Generally, the node of a hinge between the central panel and the wings is located on the inside of an altarpiece, where its node forms the axis of rotation of the wings. Here, reinforcing strap hinges with an outside axis of rotation could function only with a system of multiple nodes, linked to strong strap hinges attached to the reverse of the central frame. Presumably the original hinges no longer worked correctly, had damaged the frames, and had for this reason been duplicated on the other faces of the frames. But we cannot speak with certainty here. At times we find the central frames of large altarpieces reinforced at the back with wooden cross-bars. The Descent from the Cross (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. P02825) and the Last Judgement (Beaune, Musée de l’Hôtel-Dieu) by Rogier van der Weyden had such cross-bars. Early photographs of the reverse of the central panels of the upper altarpiece, taken before they were planed smooth in the 1950 restoration, show no trace of original wooden cross-bars that could have consolidated a framework tested by the heavy weight of the wings. After being stored away from the depredations of the iconoclasts, the altarpieces were placed on a temporary basis in 1584-1585 in the Viglius Chapel, as already mentioned, to permit the refurbishing of the Vijd Chapel. A stonemason and a joiner were paid to prepare the presentation of the altarpiece. 39 The time required for this rebuilding work suggests that the Vijd Chapel had sustained serious damage. The canopy, the altar and the predella had probably been destroyed. With the rebuilding complete, the altarpieces were returned there in 1586. The new altar (the same one which lasted until 1951, referred to as a “tomb altar with painted wooden lid” by Canon Van Den Gheyn?) was consecrated in 1588. 40 Money was spent on a base (“voet”) painted by Jan Cools, that Duverger dates to 1587. One spontaneously imagines that this “voet” replaced the old predella. The records do not specify. We believe that the new base was probably for the upper altarpiece. Whereas previously the hooks or metal brackets anchored into the wall carried only the central part of the upper altarpiece, the new base now carried the entire closed altarpiece, wings included. An old photograph shows a latch on the lower rail of the frame of the Angel of the Annunciation panel and holes left by the forged nails of a corresponding latch on the side of the Virgin (fig. 114). 41