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

MATERIALS AND MEN 23 As with wood for any other use, woodcutters trimmed the hewn tree. The trunk, cut in one piece from ground level up to the first branches, was first cut longitudinally into quarters, and then rough-sawn into boards of different lengths and thicknesses, using either an axe or a saw. This was the task of the long-sawyers. After this the wood would be set to air-dry for a period during which it would continue to shrink and warp slightly. At the start of panel production, the board was recut if necessary to a suitable thickness, after which the woodworkers traced the measurements and layout of the individual pieces, and sawed the wood to size. The quality of the cutting of the wood and the precision of the overall work depended very much on this marking up. The wide face to be painted was carefully planed and the two long narrow sides planed square to it. Very likely the boards were first cut slightly longer than necessary and joined with great care to form the panel. After this the panel would be finish planed and trimmed to the exact dimensions. In most cases, only one wide face was planed; it was preferable to keep the whole thickness of the plank for strength, and many reverses of the supports of paintings are very rough for this reason. The boards on the main panels can be quite thick, strength being the primary concern, whereas, with the wings, it was important to minimize the weight and thinner boards were preferred. Nor was there any standard width. Usually a board reached more or less 30 cm, which corresponds to more or less than half the diameter of a trunk of a full-grown tree after the removal of bark, sapwood and heartwood. Fig. 4. Robert Campin (follower), detail of The Legend of St Joseph , c. 1490-1500 (?) (Hoogstraten, Church of St Catherine).