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

CATALOGUE 354 BRUGES, St JOHN’S HOSPITAL (SJH) 1. Hans Memling, Altarpiece of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist , known as The St John Altarpiece . Closed: Jacob de Ceuninc and Antheunis Seghers with Saints ; Agnès Casembrood and Clara van Hulsen with Saints . Open: centre: Virgin and Child with Four Saints ; wings: Decollation of St John the Baptist ; Apocalypse of St John , 1479 (artist’s name mentioned on the inclined sill: date mentioned twice) Inv. no. O.SJ0175.I Provenance: painted for the St John’s Hospital. Bibliography: Coremans et al. 1959, 83-96; Bruges cat. 1960, 100-101; Lobelle and Van Cleven 1976, 506-509, S.2; Lobelle-Caluwé 1987, 48-59; De Vos 1994a, 151-157. Panels: central panel: six boards; wings: three boards; the central panel and the wings all painted in the frame. The central panel is reinforced with two dovetail- profiled bars inserted half-way into the central panel. These bars are assembled to the stiles of the frames with mortise and tenon joints and then pegged. The function of these cross-bars is to consolidate the joinery of the central part, to help carry the weight of the wings and to avoid the distortion of the central frame and consequent sagging of the wings. In the central part, stub mortise and tenon mitred at the front and cut square at the back; wings, idem, but mitred front and back . These joints are abundantly pegged. Frames: the right stile (front view) of the central frame has a set-back which does not exist in the other stile and the reason for which has not been determined. The baguette mouldings of the stiles of the centre frame have been shaped into the base of a colonnette. The sides of the wings that meet in the centre when closing the altarpiece have, on one side, a rounded strip, on the other, a corresponding groove, for closing tight. The hinges are not original. A modern metallic structure conceals the central frame at the reverse. The polychromy of the inside of the frames appears to have been partly redone; on the outside the brown marbling is original (uncovered during a restoration around 1980), but severely damaged.