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

catalogue 290 ANTWERP, MAYER VAN DEN BERGH MUSEUM (MVB) 1. Rogier van der Weyden (follower), Virgin and Child , 1488 or 1441 (date inscribed on the lower rail of the frame ) Inv. no. 0004 Provenance: acquired by Fritz Mayer van den Bergh no later than 1900. Bibliography: De Coo 1978, 175-176; Mund et al. 2003, 72-83. Panel: three radially-cut oak boards, butt-joined vertically; the board on the right (reverse) is woodwormed along the frame; the reverse is carefully planed and has a wide bevel of ± 8 cm. The panel was painted in the frame. Frame: oak, grooved; mouldings on three sides and an inclined sill at the bottom. Top: half dovetail joints, mitred at the front and cut square at the back. The two pegs in each upper corner have been replaced. Bottom: through mortise and tenon joints, with the tenons on the verticals, and one peg holding each tenon. The mouldings of the verticals rest on the inclined bottom sill. Traces of hinges both right and left suggest that the painting had wings. At each end of the lower rail a Brussel’s joiners’ mark, consisting of a plane and a pair of compasses, has been struck across the grain. It is known that the Brussels joiners’ guild made marking mandatory for carved altarpieces in 1454-1455. The frame is polychromed black and gold on a white ground. The black colour is overpainting, but the gilding and the date seem original, even though partly retouched.