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

MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES: Eyckian paintings 237 64. This frame has been examined by Uta Neidhardt (Neidhardt 2000). 65. Measurements in the Corpus : left wing: 38.3 × 23.5; right wing: 38.2 × 23.4. Comblen-Sonkes and Lorentz 1995, 1. 66. The Ghent foot was 29.77 cm. In both Bruges and Ghent, one foot equalled 11 inches . Triptych with Virgin and Child (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 799) 64 1437 33.1 × 27.5 (central panel) Thyssen Annunciation Diptych (Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, inv. no. 137.a-b) 1437 left 38.8 × 23.2 right 39 × 24 Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele (Bruges, GM , no. 1) 1437 141 × 176.5 St Barbara (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 2 ) 1437 41.2 × 27.5 Virgin at the Fountain (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 3 ) 1439 24.6 × 17.8 × 2.1-2.9 Portrait of Margaret van Eyck (Bruges, GM , no. 2) 1439 41.2 × 34.6 × 2.7 Louvre Diptych with Virgin and Child and St John the Baptist (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. R.F. 1938-22) 65 37.5 × 22.8 × 2.4 (each wing) Vera Effigies (Berlin Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, cat. no. 528) 53.2 × 41.2 × 1.7-2 Surprisingly, some of the measurements listed above correspond to the foot of Bruges which equals 27.44 cm. 66 It is the width of St Barbara and of Jan de Leeuw , as well as that of the closed Dresden Triptych . Other measurements correspond to a multiple of the foot. One and a half Bruges feet are 41.2 cm (27.5 cm × 1.5): this is exactly the height of St Barbara and of Margaret ; it is also the width of the Vera Effigies in Berlin. One is tempted to mention further that one foot and a fifth equal 32.9 cm (27.5 cm × 1.2), which is approximately the height of the Portrait of a Man ( Self Portrait ?), the Dresden Triptych and Jan de Leeuw , one foot and a quarter is 34.375 cm (27.5 cm × 1.25), which is the width of the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck. Occasionally guilds edicted regulations on measurements: the thickness of the frames of a retable had to be, depending on the circumstances, a “halve duym” (a half inch), “anderhalve duym” (one inch and a half), “een vierendeel duyms”, (one quarter of an inch), “drie vierendeel duyms” (three quarters of an inch),… Whether measurements of other early Netherlandish paintings reflect local feet and inches is a complex yet fascinating question. Earlier investigations in this field have not permitted similar conclusions to those of the Van Eyck group. We tend to think that the dimensions of paintings and altarpieces were governed by the boards available to the joiners. These were sawn into two or three depending on their length.