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

CATALOGUE 362 3. Hans Memling , Portrait of a Woman , so-called The Sybil Sambetha , 1480 (dated on the upper front of the frame) Inv. no. O.SJ0174.I Provenance: St Julians’ Hospice, Bruges. Conserved at St John’s Hospital since 1815. Bibliography: Bruges cat. 1960, 104-105; Lobelle and Van Cleven 1976, 512-513, S.4; De Vos 1994a, 168-169; Lobelle-Caluwé 2009, 1-9. Panel: a single piece slotted into the groove of the frame. Frame: stub mortise and tenon joint, mitred at the front, square at the back, with single peg. There are no traces of hinges. The polychromy is original, consisting of grey-brown marbling and a black fillet on the outside. The painter extended the lower rail of the frame in trompe-l’œil in the painting; he also extended his composition onto the frame, with the Sybil’s fingertips painted over the inclined sill, resting on the upper edge of the banderol. The cartouche on the panel itself containing a text at the upper left and the banderol on the lower rail of the frame are sometimes considered as 16th century additions.