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

CHAPTER X 228 50. Emile-Mâle 1994, 190. 51. About 22 cm corresponds to what must have been removed in the 16th century from the corresponding wings with Adam and with Eve. 52. Emile-Mâle 1994, 66; Paris, Louvre , Archives 1 BB 4, session no. 169 of 13 Fructidor year 6 (30 August 1798). 53. We remember seeing, around forty years ago, in the basement of the Louvre a large warehouse neoclassical frames, probably those made for Napoleon’s Muséum. 54. Ghent, State Archives, inv. no. SCMS_FO_5315. 8 inches wide.” 50 Examining the relationship between height and width, we conclude that around 5 cm are missing from the panels of the Virgin and St John the Baptist, and roughly 22 cm from the Divinity, which is also the largest of the three panels. 51 In case no. 13 of the fourth shipment to Paris (there were seven in all) were the three central panels of the upper altarpiece (the panel from the lower altarpiece would follow a few months later). In Paris, the council decided that the paintings on a gold background arriving from Belgium, indicated in the statements of receipt “under the name Vermeyen but believed to be by Jean Van Eick [sic] will be cleaned by Reser and the surplus wood above these three paintings will be sawn back as totally useless and to facilitate framing.” 52 The tracery was then sawn through in a straight line, leaving spandrels on either side of the golden arches. These spandrels were then roughly overpainted in brown, which was a common practice at the time for the parts of a painting that were intended to be hidden by the frame, to avoid any gap between the frame and the support causing an inappropriate reflection of light. This practice also echoes a long tradition. d) During the 19th century (fig. 116) · The first half of the 19th century After the defeat of Napoleon, the French went no further than to return in 1816 the four panels they had taken, minus the new frames they had made in Paris. 53 At St Bavo new frames were then made for these central parts, allowing them to be suspended without wings after 10 May 1816, within the baroque architectural framework which had remained in place. We know that seven months later the original wings were sold, except those of Adam and of Eve, probably stored separately even before the sale as offending the sense of decency of the day. Waagen wrote in 1819: “the paintings in the centre were formerly in very wide, very simple frames. They are today in an altarpiece of modern construction.” The word used here – altarpiece – evokes a fixed triptych. While the Commissioners had divided them into three separate paintings, there was a felicitous return to the original fixed triptych situation. The modern frame was probably black and gold, like almost all the frames in the cathedral. We believe this is the frame that can be seen in the photograph of the ensemble dated 1912, almost a century later . 54 Waagen feared that Adam and Eve had been lost, and expresses joy in 1823 on learning that they have been found.