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

CHAPTER X 224 42. “oem dat se min verarghert soude wesen duer het openstaan.” Quoted from Coremans 1953, 38. 43. Church accounts 1592-1597, fol. 33v; Dhanens 1965, 42, 116 and 117. 44. “ […] te repareren ende hulpen het tafereel van Adam ende Eva.” Quoted in Duverger 1945, 49; Coremans 1953, 23 and 38. To close the wings, the stems of the latches slid into the base. As before, the wings closed in two stages: for the first closing, the latches replaced the old pegging system that had rapidly become malfunctional. After that, the narrow wings closed, as previously, with overlapping rebates. When opening the upper altarpiece, the friction of the wings on the base made it difficult to open, and the problems of the altarpiece worsened in the final decades of the 16th century. As a precautionary measure, the altarpiece was opened only on feast days, “so that its condition worsened less by its standing open” 42 and no more money was taken from visitors. Before 1591-1592, a lock was placed. Here we would at first be tempted to suppose that this lock was intended for the upper altarpiece. Maybe it was the opposite, and that it was for the lower altarpiece. A lock is incompatible with a rebate and, in addition, a lock in the top altarpiece would have been difficult to reach. The church accounts (1592-1597) mention that the key is entrusted to the treasurer. The altarpiece is now opened just four times a year. 43 Yet it was the opening of the high altarpiece that was difficult, not that of the lower altarpiece. Presumably it was considered normal to open the two altarpieces simultaneously, and that the upper altarpiece was considered essential to open, so much so that no one envisaged opening the lower altarpiece only. The problem of the upper altarpiece was solved when it was closed because the wings rested on the base. But upon opening, the wings weighed with their full weight as before. Payment was made in 1612 to Brussels master Noveliers for “repairing and helping [support] the painting of Adam and Eve.” 44 The amount provided is high but it is not known what intervention it covers. Fig. 114. Details of the previous photo, taken in Berlin in the 19th century. A latch (left wing of the Annunciation), and traces of removed nails which once held a similar latch (corresponding right wing).