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

catalogue 332 On the outside of the diptych, the dark coloured painting of a chalice and a crucifix in assiste gilding (simplified execution with gilded lines) appears to have been painted on top of an original marbling. We nonetheless believe these motifs to be very early, as they apply a pictorial convention from the time of the diptych, which does not appear to have survived very long: the trilobate arcading framing the motifs is drawn with a single line on one side and a double line on the other. These lines point to a lateral lighting which could be understood as instructions for the appropriate handling of the diptych (Chapter IX Articulated works with instructions for use ). The outside of the diptych could therefore, like the inside, have been produced in stages, but fairly close in time.