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

CHAPTER X 236 59. We gratefully acknowledge the help of C. Scheich in the translation of this text into English. First published in Verougstraete and Van Schoute 2000, 107-117. 60. On St Barbara , see Billinge et al. 2000, 41-48. Verougstraete-Marcq and Van Schoute 1987, 73-76. 61. We are grateful to the conservators who allowed us to take a close look at these paintings: Paul Huvenne in Antwerp, Rainald Grosshans in Berlin, Dirk De Vos and Hilde Lobelle in Bruges, Philippe Lorentz and Elisabeth Martin in Paris. At the National Gallery in London, Susan Foister permitted us to look at the reverses of the Van Eyck paintings at the end of the exhibition devoted to the master there. 62. For the paintings which we did not examine, the measurements are as cited in the literature. 63. The frame of this painting is described in Campbell 1998, 213-214. B. Frames and supports of some Eyckian paintings 59 Introduction We have described elsewhere the frames of St Barbara (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 2 ), the Virgin at the Fountain (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 3 ) and those of the wings of the Van Eyck brothers’ altarpieces in Ghent . 60 In preparation of the Van Eyck symposium in the National Gallery in London in March 1998 we were able to examine – not according to a definite choice, but rather at random depending on the opportunities we had 61 – the frames of the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck (Bruges, GM , no. 2 ) and of the Vera Effigies (Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, cat. no. 528). After the description of some technical aspects of Eyckian frames, a few paintings will receive some further comment. Finally, the examination of the Diptych with Virgin and Child and St John the Baptist (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. R.F. 1938-22) prompted us to explore the links between the world of books and the Eyckian paintings – an expression cautiously chosen to designate the paintings by and around the Master. 1. Technical aspects of the frames: measurements, construction, mouldings and decoration a) Measurements Measurements of Eyckian paintings which retain their original frame (in cm, height × width × thickness). 62 Ghent altarpieces 1432 upper altarpiece (wings closed): 218.2 × 257.8 lower altarpiece (wings closed): 157.1 × 256.2 Portrait of a Man ( Self Portrait ?) (London, The National Gallery, inv. no. NG222) 63 1433 33.1 × 25.9 × 1.9 Jan de Leeuw (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 625) 1436 33 × 27