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

MASTERS AND MASTERPIECES: Eyckian paintings 243 69. Smeyers and Cardon 1995, 403-414. Did Van Eyck want to imitate, as suggested by Maurits Smeyers, raised texts on leather bookbindings, or – less likely in our opinion – texts around miniatures, seals or tombstones? 69 Only on the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck is the text inscribed into an escutcheon in the upper and lower rails. · Stone and marble imitations Stone and marble imitations are found in the Dresden Triptych , the Virgin at the Fountain , St Barbara , Portrait of Margaret van Eyck , the Thyssen Annunciation , the Vera Effigies . The marble is red, beige, pink, or green. The veins of the marble are either dark on a pale background or vice versa. Some veins are painted on a uniform background, others on a scumbled background; the frames may also imitate bonded marble or stone blocks ( St Barbara , closed frames of the Van Eyck brother’s Ghent altarpieces). On the Virgin at the Fountain (Antwerp, RMFA , no. 3 ) the mouldings are decorated with a pinkish layer, irregularly scumbled with a greyish transparent paint. Many of the white veins of the marble are retouches, among them the veins suggesting mitred joints in the corners. Some traces of black veins are also visible. The proverb or motto is inscribed on the inner cavetto, the rest of the inscription on the second cavetto is preceeded by a losange and followed by a Maltese cross behind the Fecit. The number 9 of the date is followed by a dot. The inscription was first traced in pale grey, then executed in white paint with black accents to achieve depth. The reverse presents an irregular surface, tinted with a non original black colour. The Portrait of a Man ( Self Portrait ?): gilded frame; the upper and lower rails are inscribed. The original wooden surfaces of the sides and the back seem to have been slightly planed, which may explain the loss of the original paint layers. Only small traces of the whitish ground covered with black paint remain on the reverse. The Portrait of Margaret van Eyck (Bruges, GM , no. 2 ): front: whitish ground, ochre- beige colour, brown veins; reverse: whitish ground, layer of black paint, layer of grey paint, no veins; numerous lacunae and retouchings. The sides of the frame were painted uniformly in black, directly on the wood. The Vera Effigies : whitish ground, pale yellow-ochre layer partially scumbled with ochre and greenish paint, red veins, illusory joints painted in white and brown. Edges: black paint directly on the wood. On the reverse, a layer of black paint on a white ground covers the whole surface of the frame and the panel.