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

catalogue 412 BRUGES, GROENINGE MUSEUM (GM) 1. Jan van Eyck, Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele , 1436 Inv. no. 0000.GRO0161.I Provenance: Church of St Donatus in Bruges, in the chapel where there was an altar dedicated to St Peter and St Paul and to which Canon Van der Paele had attached two chaplaincies. Thereafter various locations in the same Church, especially between 1588 and 1599/1603 on the high altar where the work was part of an ensemble with wings painted by a member of the Claeissens dynasty of painters. Confiscated by the French in 1794 and sent to Paris. Returned in 1816 and entrusted to the Academy of Bruges. In 1855, part of the City Collections, firstly in the Bogaerdeschool Museum, then, from 1930, in the buildings of the Groeninge Museum. Bibliography: De Vos 1982, 220-225; Janssens de Bisthoven 1983, 194-234, pl. CCVII-CCXLIII . Panel: composed of six horizontal boards, including a very narrow one (2 to 6 cm) at the bottom. These elements are assembled with butt joins reinforced with dowels (see X-radiograph, De Vos 1982, pl. CCXXXIX ). Only the bottom join is without dowels. Plant fibres are glued along all the joins, including that of the narrow strip, on the painting side. The panel, which has a rebated tongue on one side, was slotted into the groove in the frame. The groove now has only one cheek, the rear cheeks having been sawn back to permit removal of the painting. The panel is reinforced on the reverse by four trapezoidal laths encrusted to half their depth in a vertical direction, tapering downwards. These laths were placed on the original frame (excluding the outer frame) to which they were then nailed or pegged. The trace of this primitive arrangement is visible on the frame. Twelve recent buttons are also glued to four of the joins. Frame: in two parts. An outer part is nailed and screwed to the side of the main frame, probably an addition which is to be seen in the context of the intervention in the presentation of the work in the 16th century. The original framework has four pieces with mortise and tenon joints, with the tenons on the stiles, mixed cut to the front and likely on the reverse (where observation of the corners is limited by the presence of modern angle brackets). Two pegs reinforce each corner. The fact that one of the pegs faces the mitre tells us that the tenon extends across into the mitred part of the rail. The same fibres placed on the joins are applied on the square-cut parts of the joints on the polychromy side. As the back cheek of the groove has been sawn back, the panel is today held in its frame with swivel catches fixed to the frame and sliding over the panel. The sides do not exhibit any traces of hinges. The current polychromy consists of a flat red-brown strip between two sets of gilded mouldings (bronze powder base?) spilling over onto the flat strip. The text is painted on the flat strip. An examination of the polychromy of the frame with a view to