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

CHAPTER X 244 70. The term “jasper” is of oriental origin and has an equivalent term in Hebrew, Assyrian, Persian and Arab languages. It was adopted by the Greeks and the Romans to designate a bright coloured chalcedony, the most esteemed being the green coloured. In modern use, the word designates an opaque cryptocrystalline variety of quartz, of various colours, usually red, yellow or brown. Quoted from Murray 1970, V (H-K): 557. 71. “Porphyry”: the term is of Greek origin. A very hard rock, composed of crystals of white and red plagioclase… Quoted from Murray 1970, VII (N-Por): 1133. The method of carving porphyry did not survive in the Middle Ages, although it could have been known and admired. Production of “true sculpture” in porphyry was “rediscovered” in 1555 by Tadda in Florence. Before it had been possible to work porphyry only through sawing, drilling and abrasion (Butters 1996). 72. Allende-Salazar 1925, 3. 73. Bock et al. 1996, n°678 (525 C). 74. Dülberg 1990, 218. 75. Heller and Stodulski 1995, 131-142. · Reverse of panels, or outsides of wings: red and green jasper In designating the marbled decoration that is observed on many Eyckian paintings the term “jasper” 70 seems to be more appropriate than the often used “porphyry”. 71 The term “jasper” (and the adjective “jaspered”) is used in relation with the technique of spattering or speckling with coloured paint. The term is in use in the 15th century; in 1700 it was used in relation with Van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni (?) Arnolfini and his wife (London, The National Gallery, inv. no. NG 186), described as having wings “de madera pintada da jaspeado” (wooden wings decorated with painted jasper). 72 Red jasper occurs on the reverses of the panels of the following paintings: Portrait of Margaret van Eyck , St Francis (Turin, Galerie Sabauda, inv. no. 313), Tymotheos (London, The National Gallery, inv. no. NG 290), Portrait of Cardinal Albergati (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. C 775), the wing with Virgin and Child of the Louvre Diptych , St Barbara , Portrait of Michele (?) Arnolfini (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, cat. no. 523 A). It once existed on the reverse of the Virgin in a Church. 73 Marble or stone imitations probably also once adorned the reverses of The Portrait of a Goldsmith (Sibiu, Brukenthal National Museum, inv. no. 354) and Baudouin de Lannoy (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, cat. no. 525 G ). 74 The reverse of the Portrait of Margaret van Eyck will be described in more detail hereafter. Green and yellowish jasper appears in the following cases: the Thyssen Annunciation , the Rolin Madonna and the wing with St John the Baptist of the Louvre Diptych . The reverse of the Detroit St Jerome (The Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. no. 25.4) has unpainted edges (the original frame is lost). “Approximately one half of the surface has been preserved. It was painted in dark green paint over a white ground. A pattern of yellow crosshatching marks is discernible over the dark green paint.” 75